


The Reckoning Arrives

by epersonae, hops



Series: the only life you could save [17]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: All the ships are here, Also basically the whole gang is here, Canon-Typical Violence, Fantasy Adventure, The Revenge, These chucklefucks still need to learn how to communicate, but they're kinda in the background, but they're trying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 22:43:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 77,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae, https://archiveofourown.org/users/hops/pseuds/hops
Summary: Lucretia gets information she's been seeking for a long time: the whereabouts of one former Governor Kalen. Now Taako and Merle's promise may be fulfilled, if they can make it through. They'll have the help of a competent woman (and Magnus's best friend), the world's greatest detective, a couple of reapers, and another unlikely ally.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fic is complete, updates Mondays and Thursdays. (Yeah, we're starting on a Wednesday. We got antsy.)
> 
> This piece more or less stands on its own, although there’s some existing relationships you’ll want to know before you begin. During the Stolen Century, Lucretia and Taako were both involved with Magnus, and they are again when this story begins. They have a tentative truce based on some recent conversations, forced by Angus’s recent graduation. 
> 
> Additionally, Angus is Magnus and Lucretia’s child conceived shortly before the Forgetting; he spends his time not at school split between Magnus’s home in Raven’s Roost, Lucretia’s apartment on the moon, and Taako’s home in Neverwinter with Kravitz, Barry, and Lup. 
> 
> Of course, we’re also very proud of all the previous works in this series, and we think reading them will enhance your experience of this.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia gets the gang together. Kravitz is concerned. Mavis is observant.

Lucretia holds her farspeech pendant in the palm of her hand as she looks at a heavily-creased paper on her desk. She has three frequencies to call, where once she would have simply called her best Regulators into her office. Perhaps that would have been easier, if Brian had been able to acquire this information; but perhaps it’s a blessing that it took so long.

She goes to the easiest one first: “Carey, I think I have a job for you. Something a little more Balance than Benevolence?” A pause, and she chuckles. “No, we're not taking out another casino. This is…. I'll explain when you get here?”

Then, Merle. She has to leave a message, of course, and as she listens to his outgoing message, she makes a snap decision. “Hi Merle, it's Lucretia. If you get this, I'll be coming to visit soon. I want your help….” She takes a deep breath. “Actually, I have something you're going to want to hear, and I hope you'll want my help.”

Finally, and with some trepidation, she puts in the last frequency.

Without any preamble, she says, “I've found Kalen.”

Taako is quiet for a long moment as her statement settles. The slight static that crackles from Lucretia’s end feels just a little too loud, just a little too unreal _._ Something hot, something _sharp_ that’s been sleeping inside him for years now shakes itself awake. Across the kitchen, Magnus and Kravitz are already heading out the door.

“Taako, you coming or what?” Magnus asks with the same goofy smile Taako’s known his entire life. “Who’s calling?”

Taako swallows, opens his mouth, waves a hand so Magnus will give him the moment longer he needs to speak.

“Gimme a time and place and I’ll be there,” he says quietly into the stone. Kravitz puts a hand on Magnus’s upper back as he opens the door. He glances at Taako and they lock eyes.

She continues, “Carey’s meeting me at the Bureau and then…. Merle isn’t answering his stone, surprise surprise, so I was thinking of just heading down and at least let him know. I'm not even…. I don't know if it's my place to…. But I can give you what I have and you all can decide.” She picks up the paper again. “So I'll call when I get to Merle's?”

Taako nods, half to himself, half to Kravitz, who seems to understand without words and ushers Magnus out onto the porch. “Yeah. I mean…” he considers the gravity of what this means. Kalen, out there, and Magnus, outside, not a memory of what the son of a bitch did. “Me and Merle— we…”

He stops, trails off. Considers the wall of pictures and memories beside him, old and new. Considers that after everything Magnus has done, he can do this for him.

“We owe him that much.”

After tucking the farspeech pendant back into her robes, she steps out of her office. It’s quiet and orderly, just a normal afternoon. Her assistant looks up from writing in a small black notebook.

“Let me know when Carey Fangbattle gets here,” Lucretia says, then pauses. “And cancel anything I've got on my calendar this afternoon. I might need you to reschedule the rest of this week, too.”

“Ma’am, is everything alright?” her assistant asks with a quizzical look.

A wry smile, then: “Hard to say, Alex. I think it will be, maybe.”

“Let me know if I can help.”

“Just….” She considers everything; yet another secret from her own people. “Just let me know when Carey gets in.”

Then back to her desk: she has work to do. She has a _lot_ of work to do. Under that paper is a whole stack of other papers. Decisions to make, work to process, a million little details that go with running this now-vast organization. And yet: she’s frozen. She wants to help them do this, if they’ll let her.

Carey, of course, doesn’t wait for Alex to announce her, instead she simply appears in Lucretia's office, having pulled up a chair and thrown her feet up on the desk.

“Hey boss.”

“Carey.” She stares pointedly at Carey’s feet, which don’t move. “So here's the —”

Inexplicably, the sheet of paper on the top of the stack is now in Carey’s hand. She flicks the corner of the note with one finger.

“We’re taking out the guy who took out the Roost? I am so in.”

She’s got a grin, but with a dark edge to it.

Lucretia glances at the door. They’re respectable now: _she_ is respectable now. No more Regulators, at least not as they used to be. Killian trains peacekeepers for Lord Sterling now. She is honestly not entirely sure what Carey does, and is not entirely sure she wants to know.

At that exact moment, the door opens a crack and Alex pops her head in.

“Ma’am I think I saw….” She spots Carey and just nods, then closes the door again.

“We’re not talking about it here. And honestly, I don’t know how much I’m going to be involved?”

“What? No way. You’re his...I mean, really? You don’t think you should?”

She shrugs.

“We’ll talk about it on the way to Merle’s.”

“Merle, huh?” Carey pops up out of the chair, her heels leaving scuff marks on some very important paperwork. Lucretia finds she doesn’t much care. She snatches the page out of Carey’s hand, then grabs a handful of scrolls from her desk and her new staff. (It’s been years now, but it’s still the “new” staff.)

As they’re on their way out the dome’s main door, Alex asks if she’ll be back. She pauses for a long beat.

“Not today, I shouldn’t think.”

“Cancel tomorrow’s meetings?”

She takes another deep breath.

“She’ll be back when she’s back,” says Carey, before Lucretia can reply. “I think you can cope for a few days.”

* * *

When they reach the train station, Taako trails behind, letting Magnus be the one to rush into greeting Angus as he steps onto the platform. Taako slows to a stop as Kravitz turns, looking curious, worried, even.

“What’s going on?” Kravitz asks, touching Taako’s arm. “Who called?”

Taako watches as Magnus pulls Angus into a hug. The kid is as tall as Magnus now, and with him growing like a weed and Magnus getting older, he’s as strong, too. He doesn’t like to think about him being stronger. Humans age too fast. Magnus’s laugh carries over the chatter of the crowds mulling about the station.

“‘Cretia,” Taako says. He doesn’t take his eyes away from Magnus. “She’s, um…”

He doesn’t know how to tell Kravitz. How to explain how it’s burning a hole in the middle of him, how he’s restless all over again in his secondhand grief.

“I might have to leave.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Kravitz frown. “What’s—?”

“Tonight, probably. Maybe sooner, I don’t know. Can you and Angus keep him…entertained?”

“You mean distracted.”

Magnus throws his arm over Angus’s shoulder and starts to walk towards them. Both of them wear crooked grins, each the other’s mirror image.

“She found Kalen,” Taako says, with a seriousness he’s unsure he’s ever shown Kravitz. “And I gotta go.”

There’s no time for Kravitz to respond, though he seems to be as speechless as Taako had been upon receiving Lucretia’s call. Angus steps out of Mangus’s grasp and grabs Taako for a tight hug. Taako feels dwarfed next to him. Since when had Angus McDonald _boy detective_ grown old (and large) enough to make him feel small?

“Hey, kiddo,” Taako pushes a gleaming smile onto his own face, then reaches out to straighten Angus’s bowtie. “Hope the ride was alright. No glass ball express for you?”

“No, Mom would want a visit, and I know she’s been too busy for that so… scenic route it was. It’s nice, sometimes.”

Taako blinks as Angus moves to hug Kravitz, and he wonders if Angus knows. Or, perhaps more accurately, _what_ Angus knows.

* * *

The glass ball has been aimed and calibrated for Bottlenose Cove. Lucretia buckles herself in, coughs dramatically until Carey follows suit.

“Okay okay boss. You know you could just have Avi design in airbags or something.”

She chuckles: Killian might’ve been her right hand, but Carey was always the most _fun_ of the regulators. She gets why Carey and Magnus became such fast friends. Which is why she’d invited her, or at least part of why. Thinking of that, and what’s coming, cuts off her laughter.

“So. Governor Kalen,” she says.

“Yeah, that asshole. You’ve been looking for him for a while. But we’re going to Merle’s? Not the Roost?”

“Have you talked to him about what happened at the Roost...since the Day?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Ah, well. So then, Wonderland.” She gives Carey the outline of what had happened, at least what she's been able to get out of Merle. They can see individual trees on the cliffs looking onto the sea by the time she finishes.

“Well fuck. So he can’t?”

“No.”

“And he made those chucklefucks promise?”

“Yup.”

“So we’re gonna….”

She shakes her head as she pulls on the brake.

“I don’t know. I’m sure they can use an accomplished rogue, and you’re probably his closest friend from here. Whether I can be of help...we’ll see.”

Carey rolls her eyes.

“Pardon the expression, boss, but fuck that shit. They’d be lucky to have you.”

“That’s sweet of you to say. Of course, I don’t even know if Merle is home. He could be out of range, I guess? Teen adventures and all that.”

“Naw, probably just left his stone sitting on the kitchen table on silent.”

The glass ball bounces to a stop on the back lawn. They unsnap their seatbelts and Lucretia pops the doors, which swing wide with a long hiss. Lucretia looks up at the manor, chewing on her lip, unaccountably nervous. When she closes her eyes for a second to gather her thoughts, she sees Magnus dancing at his wedding in a town unknowingly on the verge of destruction.

“Let’s find out,” she says, but Carey is already halfway to the door. In the distance, perhaps in the woods, she can hear kids yelling.

* * *

When the call comes, Taako is ready. He’s nearly done explaining to Kravitz what he needs: just keep Magnus occupied long enough for him to get this done. Kravitz’s brow seems to knit tighter with every word, but he doesn’t speak.

With nothing left to say, Taako leans against the counter in their silence, the marble beneath his hands just as cool as Kravitz is. But Kravitz isn’t touching him now. He’s standing across from him, arms folded, somehow a worrying and calming presence at the same time.

“This is… dangerous, dove.”

“Oh, yup, I’ve never encountered anything dangerous before! You got me.” Taako smirks, leans forward to poke Kravitz in the ribs. “Oh, deffo never killed any assholes before either. Taako’s got no idea what he’s doing.”

Kravitz pulls Taako’s hand into both of his own, his grip cold on Taako’s warm skin. He’s quieter when he speaks.

“And if he kills you?”

Taako lets out a long sigh, pulling away and avoiding Kravitz’s gaze by rocking back and forth playfully. “Then I’ll just move into your place in the Astral Plane, baby. Don’t worry so much.”

Kravitz doesn’t laugh. He stops Taako’s movement with one steady hand. “I’m serious, Taako. If he so much as catches sight of you…. He knows the Story. And I’m sure he wouldn’t mind adding another name to the list of people he’s taken from Magnus.”

Taako purses his lips. Flexes his hands, ignoring the way they tremble as he moves.

He thinks of Magnus. Of all his nightmares and all his grief cast out to the wind as ashes in Wonderland. The seriousness of his dark eyes as he asked Taako and Merle for their word as he gave up Kalen’s memory.

He thinks of Julia, lovely, young, faceless. Gone, and never to be known.

“I promised Maggie.” He smoothes a hand over Kravitz’s braids, searching for understanding in his reddish eyes. As Kravitz fixes him with a soft, worried gaze, he finds it. “I’ll be back before ya know it, Bones.”

He kisses Kravitz’s cheek, then heads for the living room for his goodbyes.

* * *

Lucretia hears a familiar pattern of knocking on the manor’s front door, followed by an insistent ringing of the bell, and she startles very slightly. Not so much that anyone else would notice, probably, though to her it feels like she’s jumped out of her skin. Carey and Merle are trading appalling stories: something about Leon, maybe? Neither of them seem to have noticed the sound, so she clears her throat. Merle’s still laughing almost hard enough to cry.

“Shall I get the door?” she says.

“No, no, _nooo.”_ Merle waves his wooden arm as he hops off his chair and heads for the door. “I got it. Yup, ol’ Merle, always doing everything himself.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose.

Merle swings the heavy wooden door open. “Taako!” he calls, smacking Taako’s hip.

Taako’s too distracted for his usual vague noise of disgust or snide comment. “Gang’s all here?” he asks, peering down the hall and into the kitchen, but he can’t see the table from where he’s standing.

“Yeah. Mavis is around somewhere, so…” Merle puts a finger up to his mouth in the universal sign for _don’t talk so loudly that my step-daughter finds out we’re plotting to kill a man._ “Come on, they’re gettin’ real antsy about all this.”

Taako follows him into the kitchen. The tall open windows let crisp salted air into the space, but it somehow still feels heavy. Just a little bit hard to breathe. At the table, Carey looks restless, eager, even, her leg bouncing quickly beneath the table. Lucretia’s face is void of expression at all, and Taako knows enough to know this means she’s worrying.

He sits down across from her at the round table and folds his hands. “So, do we get a cool superhero team name? Or is this more of a gang kind of deal?”

Lucretia snorts.

“I could make y’all honorary Regulators,” says Carey, “if that’s cool by the boss. It’s deffo our kind of gig, or woulda been, you know, if we were still —”

Lucretia cuts her off. “I don’t think a nickname is necessary. Besides, I don’t think you have exactly the best track record in coming up with team names, _Taako_. If you’re ready, though, I can fill you in on what I have.” She takes out the piece of paper, then projects a globe of Faerun over the table. “As I think you all know, former governor Kalen disappeared after he destroyed—” She purses her lips and continues. “Since then, he's kept an almost impossibly low profile: all I was able to get until now was rumors, places where maybe he used to be. And if anything, it's been worse since we, ah, well, since we've become well-known. But I have positive confirmation that he's in the Dragonsword Mountains, and apparently unlikely to be leaving there anytime soon.”

She looks at the three of them: Merle idly fiddling with a leaf on his arm; Carey spinning a knife, digging the point into the kitchen table, and Taako, for once, still as a stone.

“So…. That's what I have,” she says after a pause. “I know you boys made a promise, and Carey’s got some expertise you might find handy. And I….” She wants to go. She wants this man's blood more than anything she's wanted in years. She wants him to suffer for every second Magnus spent on the road, wanting to die.

Taako meets her eyes, both of their faces bathed in the light of the projection. He notices it on her face now, the emotionless facade cracked by a feeling he can _see,_ a feeling that resonates within him as it passes as a shadow over her eyes. Something hot and sharp and staticky. Some old, righteous rage, entangled now with their understanding of Magnus’s mourning.

He remembers the Arcaneum. The woman she’d been then, colored by a projection of a world not unlike this one, as her team left her behind.

“You thought you were getting out of this that easy?” Taako says, folding his arms.

She allows herself a small smile. Carey gives her a nod of encouragement.

“In that case,” and she unfurls a scroll with a detailed list of supplies, a map of the region with notes about the denizens of the region and possible places where they might spy beforehand or reconnoiter after, and some contacts vouched for by her informant, “I have a few ideas about how we might handle this.”

Taako leans back in his chair, nose tipped upwards. “I mean, cha’boy was just thinking you tell us where he is, and we all, y’know, _go…_ Then I kill him, and we grab some ice cream or something, and we’re cool.” He cocks a brow at Lucretia’s silence. “But… I guess I’m open to suggestions.”

Merle clears his throat loudly. “If I recall, we _both_ promised Magnus we’d kill this guy’s ass, and I still want in on the action, alright? I cancelled a whole Extreme Teen Adventure for this shit. Where are those kids gonna get infinite wisdom _and_ survival skills, now?”

Taako sighs, leans forward, then trails two fingers along the map, ignoring Merle. A rare seriousness cements his face into a scowl.

“So, what, we get shot outta the cannon, sneak in there, kill the guy, throw him off a cliff or something. Worked for us so far,” Merle shrugs.

Taako puts a hand over his eyes. “I’m already regretting this.”

Lucretia expands the area of the projection so they can see the jagged peaks. “It's not exactly someplace we can just drop into with a glass ball. We'll probably have a day or two walk, or we might be able to get horses here,” she says, pointing to a small town. “And this isn’t going to be like taking out a low-level street racer.” She gives Merle a sharp look. “Kalen has been on the run or in hiding for more than a decade. My information suggests that he has allies, too, so….”

Carey stops her dagger-spinning, looking back and forth between the projection and the papers. “This asshole decided he’d rather take his chances in that wilderness? Doubt it’s a ‘drop a dude off a cliff’ scenario, bud. More like real work….” She trails off, frowning. “Wait. Boss? Uh, how long have you known where….”

Lucretia winces, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Just a few days,” she says.

 _“Days?”_ Taako sits up, tone sharper than it’d been moments before. “We could have—” he stops himself, takes a breath.

“Seriously, boss, what the hell?” Carey’s frill flares slightly.

“Alright, well, she probably wouldn’t have had all _this,”_ Merle gestures to the projection and the maps, “if she told us right away, right? Take it easy. Fucker’s gonna be dead no matter what day we get there.”

“Sure, or we coulda helped or something.” Carey gives the dagger another spin, deepening the pit in Merle’s kitchen table.

Lucretia takes a deep breath and with a gesture the projection vanishes.

“I apologize if….” She clears her throat. “Anyway. I thought it required at least a little preparation. Or, you know, we could just smash into a fortress with a glass ball and get killed by trolls after about ten minutes. Either way. You all want a chance to check my work on this one, or shall we finish planning on the way?”

“Time’s a-wastin’,” Taako sighs loudly as he hops easily to his feet, eyes trained on Lucretia. “Probably shouldn’t waste any more.”

She nods at him as she gathers up the papers. “Excellent.”

* * *

When Taako steps out onto the porch overlooking the beach, Mavis is already out there with her forearms propped up on the railing. A smile tugs the corner of his mouth.

“What’s crackin’, chickadee?” Taako says, drumming his long fingers atop her head. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“You’re gonna ask _me_ what’s cracking?” A clever look takes her features for a moment. “You and Dad and Aunt Lucretia and Carey are plotting to…” She sighs, squeezing her forearm with her opposite hand. “Kill? A guy?”

Taako cringes. “Oh, that?” He laughs uneasily. “Don’t worry about that. That’s just…”

He looks down at Merle and Carey on the ground far below, loading up their glass ball with the supplies they’d need for the next few days. He slumps over the railing beside her, on his elbows and leaning forward. He looks sideways at Mavis and she rolls her eyes.

“What?” Taako asks.

“I’m just waiting to see how you’re gonna try and talk your way out of that one.”

“Nothin’ gets past you, huh?”  He pauses. “Listen… we’ve got it handled. Nothing to worry about. This dude, he’s…”

But Taako’s distracted by footsteps behind them. Lucretia clears her throat as she steps out of the front door.

“Mavis, dear, it’s always good to see you,” she says as she steps across the porch and bends down to embrace Mavis. “Are you still spending some of your time at your mother’s pearl farm, or just helping with the earldom?”

“Mom’s got like, a whole crew now, so….” Mavis shrugs as Lucretia stands looking down the lawn. “But I dive on the holidays, sometimes.” Mavis glances from Lucretia to Taako and back again.

“When you’re not out battlewagon racing?” Taako smirks, turning around so he’s leaning back against the railing, arms folded, looking at Mavis but facing Lucretia.

Mavis still looks a little dumbfounded as she glances between her aunt and her uncle.

“Oh, battlewagons?” says Lucretia. “How exciting! We’ll have to catch up soon and you can tell me all about it. Or maybe you can fill us in on the way, Taako?”

Taako stretches, letting out a big, fake groan. “Oh, well, I did bear witness to a decisive victory when I made it out to a race.”

Mavis frowns. “That was Hurley, it’s not like _I_ was driving.”

“ _All_ the roles on a battlewagon are important, dear, not just the driver,” says Lucretia.

Taako waves a hand. “Important or nah, take the win and run, bubbeleh. Doesn’t matter how you get there.”

“Says the elf who used a wand of switcheroo in a race,” Lucretia says with a snort.

“Says the elf who walked outta there to the tune of a metric ton of confetti and 3,000 GP, baby. Win’s a win.”

“Fair. And I guess we didn’t have to pay you out of the Bureau coffers that time, so a win all the way around, really.”

Mavis’s frown deepens, and she opens and closes her mouth a couple of times. This might be the longest conversation she’s ever seen between Lucretia and Taako, and it’s...friendly? Almost? She’s still trying to figure out what to even say when Carey comes bounding up the steps.

“Hey boss? Taak? I think we’re good to go, we should probably —” Then Carey notices Mavis on the porch. “Oh, hi Mave. We’ll get your pop back in a couple days, probably, cool?”

“Cool,” Mavis says faintly. “Don’t…” She looks at Taako. “Just… make sure he doesn’t do anything _too_ stupid. I’m not really up for being countess yet.”

Just then, Merle’s voice echoes up to the house: “Get yer asses down here or I’m just gonna take this ball and kill that fucker Kalen all by my damn self.”

There’s a long uncomfortable silence. Carey jumps down the stairs two at a time without a word. Lucretia clears her throat. Mavis nods thoughtfully.

Taako presses two fingers to his temple. “Do you have that countess paperwork ready to go, or...?”

Then Merle notices her and gives an uncomfortable laugh. “Oh. Hey Mavis honey. We were just — ya know.”

Mavis walks towards him and pulls him into a brief hug. “Please be careful. And don’t forget your ginkgo tea, it only helps your memory if you remember to drink it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will. I’ve got Lucinda here, who makes the best tea around.”

Taako groans, putting a hand on his face. “Jesus.”

Lucretia sighs. “Merle, please.”

“Ah, just kidding,” Merle laughs. “I know it’s Lucretia, of course. I’m just goofing ya. And I’ll drink my tea and take care of these kids and I’ll be back before you know it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks Alex from WDA for an idea about what her namesake is doing at her desk. (Deep cut: Lucretia’s assistant writes Caleb Cleveland fanfic.) Fun fact! There’s no female version of “earl”, apparently one just uses “countess” instead. Also, spot the callout to a fic that epersonae has been working on since the Nashville liveshow. (Someday, I swear.)
> 
> Tremendous thanks to @bluemoodblue for beta-ing, and to the whole WDA for indulging our hint-dropping, contextless screeching, and occasional copy-pasting. We really hope you love it as much as we do. Thank you for everything. <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A contact is made. The wrong person makes a save. Everyone yells at Angus.

When they make their layover at the Bureau headquarters and Lucretia presents the coordinates for their next destination, the half-elf on duty gives her a doubtful look. But it’s the Director, and her expression gives no room for questions, so she just programs it in. As she does, Lucretia heads for the hangar exit, back to her quarters to get the bag she’s packed, but Carey puts a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Carey, gesturing to the bags behind the seats.

“Please tell me you didn't break into my quarters,” Lucretia replies.

“I mean, you know. I couldn’t imagine you weren’t coming along.”

And then they’re careening towards the surface again, coasting over the Sea of Purple Dust, approaching but not descending into the broken and jagged peaks of the Dragonsword Mountains, sliding to a stop in the narrow stretch grasslands between desert and badlands.

Merle shifts beneath his safety belt, tucked snug beside Taako. “What I don’t get,” he starts, fully serious, “is why we didn’t just ask your boyfriend to just do this for us. Seems a lot easier than all this.”

Taako sighs. “Oh my gods. Merle? That’s not— that’s literally not how _any_ of that works.”

From the front seat, Carey laughs. “Seems like cheating, anyway, bud. Don’t you want the reward of….” She drags the claw of her index finger across her throat.

Taako unclips his belt. “Lizard girl knows what it’s about.”

“Maybe don’t with the ‘lizard’ stuff, yeah? I’m cool when Mag does it, but like, as a rule that’s not a thing.” She hefts out her pack, checking all the straps. “Fangbattles run small, I know, but you don't have to make a thing out of it.”

Taako exchanges a look with Merle, eyebrows raised. “Guess we can’t all be as cute as Magnus.” Then after an awkward silence, “My bad.”

She shrugs. “Unless you want me to start calling you spaceman….”

Lucretia takes a deep breath and begins unpacking their supplies. “You managed to work together before, _somehow_ ,” she mutters under her breath. Once everything is laid out on the ground around them, she touches her bracer to send the ball back to the Bureau base. The bracers aren’t required anymore; Avi’s designed buttons that can be carried in a pocket, but she’s a little sentimental about hers.

“We’ve got a little walk before we get to Hurn,” she says, hefting her pack onto her shoulders for the first time in many years. She’s not entirely sure how many. “Then I can check in with our contact, we can see if there’s any ponies, final supplies, what have you. I gather there’s an inn, so we can stay for the night….” She looks around at her companions as they get themselves ready. “Unless you all feel like continuing through the night?”

“I _could,”_ Taako starts, and he _wants_ to. He wants Kalen in the ground as soon as possible. But if a century of adventuring with three human teammates had taught him anything, it was that they need sleep. Even Lucretia. “But I’ll take beauty sleep when it’s offered.”

* * *

They see the town long before they approach it; there’s so little out here that it appears more prominent than it would almost anywhere else. A cluster of buildings in wood and stone huddle together atop a hill, behind a wall that’s more like a very tall fence. Lucretia picked their landing spot with the idea that they wouldn’t be spotted, but even she has to wonder if it was far enough, and hope that they will appear sufficiently travel-worn that people will believe they’ve come on foot.

There is a road, eventually, or at least a wagon trail, that connects the few settlements this far from civilized lands, and that’s how they approach the town’s gate. Lucretia pauses to look up at it.

“Disguises?” she asks. Carey shrugs, pulls up her hood, as if to say that’s all she needs.

“Yeah, yeah,” Taako sighs, pausing for a moment to consider how to build his new appearance. He casts the spell and, just a moment later, appears as a travel-worn half-orc, tall and rugged with two small tusks protruding from his lips.

Merle does the same, though opting for a less dramatic transformation. He dons the appearance of a dwarf about half his age with a shock of cropped red hair and a long, braided beard to match. In this form, his Soulwood arm is replaced by the appearance of flesh and a cheerful blue eye takes the place of his eyepatch.

“What’cha got, Creesh?” Taako drawls, voice much lower than they’re used to.

Her transformation is more subtle still, aging her another dozen years, with slight alterations to her features, the shock of white hair changed to brown flecked with grey. She stoops slightly, making her staff seem more of a support. This disguise is as familiar as an old coat.

“Ready,” she says; still her own voice, but she pitches it just a touch higher.

Carey shakes her head. “Magic users, man.”

“Better an gittin’ ye recognized as Mr. TV an’ Mrs. Bureau o’ Benevolence,” Merle points out, butchering his sentence with his awful Scottish accent.

“What the hell?” Carey snickers, covering her mouth with her hand. Taako joins her, wheezing a little.

Lucretia shakes her head. “Merle. No? I mean…. No. Please. For the love of…. Just don't.”

“You guys are no fun,” Merle waves a hand and starts walking ahead, muttering about _everyone else gets a voice, why don’t I get a voice, damn fools_.

But they make it to the town and through the wall without incident just after sunset. The half-orc at the gate asks for a toll, higher than seems proportionate to the size of the town, but then perhaps that’s Kalen’s influence even at this distance. Or maybe something else. They _have_ the money, and it’s best not to draw too much attention, so Lucretia directs Taako to pay it, and the gatekeeper gives Taako an appraising look, but doesn’t say anything. At least they don’t ask them to hand over weapons or anything, though that itself is also a bit curious.

The inn is easy enough to find: the tallest in a settlement of small squat buildings, with a handful of trade caravan wagons out front, all looking much the worse for wear. This isn’t a place you travel if you’re doing well as a trader.

Inside, a halfling with tired eyes strums a lute, just slightly out of tune. An elderly human woman missing one eye looks up from behind the bar. Several other pairs of eyes glance sideways at the party, but no one speaks or looks directly at them.

“Rooms?” says the bartender.

“Two, please,” Taako says with a nod. “Next to each other, if you can. I’ll need to check on my grandma, here. You know how it is.” He motions at Lucretia, a small touch of smugness on his lips. She pats his arm.

“It’s good to travel with family,” she says.

The bartender makes a gruff noise and plucks two keys from a big board.

“One night?”

Lucretia nods, and the woman hands both keys to Taako. When they get to their rooms, up two flights of stairs, Carey flops down onto the bed — dusty and creaking ominously — and laughs almost to tears.

“Fuckin’.... Damn. Fuckin’ grandma?”

“Sometimes it’s good to stick with the classics,” says Lucretia as she sets down her pack, frowning at the lumpy mattress.

In their room, Taako and Merle dump their bags onto the creaking wooden floor. Taako splays out on the bed and ignores the stirring of dust motes in the air as he disturbs the fabric.

“I dunno about you, but I’m taking a nap,” Merle says. Taako lays still, staring up at the beams of the ceiling, until Merle is snoring lightly on the other side of the room.

He pulls a book from his pack, some literary classic Kravitz loves that he’d snagged a copy of for himself. Having only read a few chapters, he figures reading a few more will pass the time. In the years after their adventuring days, he’d forgotten how much of an “adventure” is really spent sitting around waiting for the next move.

When Carey knocks to retrieve them, he wakes Merle up with a mage hand to the cheek. He startles and sits up.

“Re-up on that disguise, my dude,” he says to Merle, still reading but waving a finger at him anyway. “Last thing we need is anyone recognizing your mug.”

“I know, I’m handsome.”

Taako chuckles, puts his book down, and re-casts his own spell, this time adding a pair of humble gold earrings. Merle cocks a brow.

Taako shrugs. “Keeping with the classics.”

“Not too bad,” says Carey. “Now we should probably check in with the boss, yeah?”

Merle hops down off the bed, and the three of them head into the other room. Lucretia is frowning down at her notes.

“What’s the haps?” Taako asks.

“I should meet up with my contact,” says Lucretia. “I was given a signal to use and told that they spent most evenings here, downstairs. I’ll be right back.”

Merle stands up. “Hey, woah, woah, I don’t think you should—“

_“Alone?”_ Taako interrupts.

Carey, still lounging on the bed, just says, “Boss….”

“No, absolutely, you're right. Bad habit. Shall we?” She holds out an arm to Taako. “Sonny?”

“You’re gettin’ too old for this line of work,” Taako drawls in his disguised voice, taking her arm.

“Watch it,” Merle warns. “I may look strapping in this disguise, but I’ll teach ya an old man’s lesson if I have to.”

“What, how to apply denture cream?”

Merle pinches Taako’s arm, making him yelp. Carey laughs. Lucretia sighs and leads them into the hall.

When they get down to the bar, there’s a bit more of a crowd: town folks, it looks like, and the room is just a bit louder than before. Nothing anyone would call lively, though. The halfling is playing again, or perhaps still, and they walk in on possibly the worst rendition of Johann’s Song that any of them has heard. (It’s a popular song; there are a lot of bards who try it who shouldn’t.)

She turns to say something to Carey, but the dragonborn is gone. A quick scan of the bar indicates that she's found a spot with a good view of both the room and the door. Lucretia smiles. This is what she'd hired her for, all those years ago.

She approaches the bar, her hand still tucked in the crook of Taako's arm, Merle trailing behind them.

“Does he take requests?” she asks the bartender, inclining her head towards the bard.

The eyebrow above the eyepatch goes up.

“Dunno why you would, but I guess I could pass along a request. You all want something to drink in the meantime?”

“A round of ciders, thanks,” Taako nods. Something they’ll all drink.

“Cider? We got beer, dark beer, and whiskey.” She turns and squints at the shelf behind her. “Maybe a wine? Medicinal brandy?”

Merle waves dismissively in Taako’s direction. “Whatever you’re havin’.”

“Local still or imported whiskey?” asks Lucretia.

Another squint at the bar. “I think all I got right now is stuff from a guy here in town, nothing fancy.”

Lucretia winces. “Beer is fine.”

“Finicky old bird, isn’t she?” Taako says to the bartender in jest. The bartender stares him down with one eye, humorless, then turns to get their beers.

“Tough crowd,” Taako murmurs, mostly to himself. Lucretia barely resists rolling her eyes at him.

The bartender returns with their flagons and Taako hands them out.

“And the request?”

Lucretia speaks up. “ _The Heretic’s Pride_. It’s a favorite of mine.”

The bartender makes a face. “Weird choice. I’ll pass it along. Better hope they know it, they’re not exactly…”

“It seems like their style,” she says. “I hope they're willing to indulge an old traveler's whim.”

The three of them claim a table at the far side of the tavern where Carey can keep an eye on them. They sip their beers in silence, the slight chatter and the bard’s not-so-great music filling the room.

“Reminds me of the old times,” Merle chuckles, mostly to himself.

“Which part, exactly?” asks Taako.

“Pick your poison, I guess.” Merle takes a long pull. “Shitty beer on plenty of planes. Shitty taverns to match. And this grifter bullshit.”

Taako can’t help but laugh.

Lucretia laughs as well. “A chance to try out some character voices, I suppose.”

Merle frowns. “And you still never let me do mine.”

Taako replies, “That _thing_ you do isn’t an accent. It sounds like a bagpipe stuck in a wood chipper.”

Merle puts his Scottish accent back on. “Dinna ye think yer bein’ a little harsh, yeah?”

Across the room, the halfling nods when the bartender speaks to him, re-tuning his lute before beginning the song. It's not well played, but at least he puts some energy into it. Immediately after, he announces a break, which gets about as much attention as when he was actually playing. In either case, it's not much.

At the table, the three wait for the signal to be acknowledged. After a minute or two, the halfling approaches, lute tucked under his arm.

“Gertrude says you requested the song?”

Lucretia inclines her head, lifts her still full glass.

“Are you _her_?” he asks. “Don't exactly look like….”

“Never mind that,” she replies. “Why don’t you just —” She hears muttering from Merle and feels a little buzz sweep across her head. She pauses to take a deep breath in order to keep from spilling anything she shouldn’t — or possibly just to keep from yelling at Merle. “Why don’t you tell us what you know about —” She bites off the words _the man we’re going to kill_ , although the halfling doesn’t seem to notice.

Taako glances over at Merle and feels that familiar buzz felt so many ( _too many)_ times in their years adventuring, but he saves easily. Merle himself, however, is not so lucky. He cringes, then shrugs, as he looks at Taako.  

“So my cousin Joan used to be an informant for the old Bureau, which, wow so cool. Wish I'd known, you know. I could have _met_ Johann? That would have been…. Wow. So when my cousin Jerry said he'd seen the guy, _you know,_ I got in touch with Joan and then she sent the Seeker, uh, the tall guy you know, with the,” and he makes a gesture like glasses around his eyes, “and I wrote everything down and he said he'd get it to you. And yeah.”

She blanches, or she would if it wasn't for the Disguise Self. _Tall guy. A Seeker._

Angus had said he'd been passed the message through the network, not that he'd come all the way here. She glances at Taako, unable to read his expression on that half-orc face.

Taako feels her gaze and it takes all of his strength not to look back. His heartbeat quickens with anxiety. _Angus_ is wrapped up in this. Of all the things he’d expected to go wrong, this was not one of them. The compulsion to grill Lucretia for answers, or pick an argument, sparks inside him, but it’s Merle who interrupts his train of thought.

“Oh!” Merle says loudly. “You mean A—”

“A seeker with big glasses!” Taako yelps over Merle and nearly breaks a toe stomping on his foot. Taako clears his throat and brings his voice back down.  “Yeah, we’ve seen him around.”

“Yes, enough about the Seeker; tell us what you know about the current whereabouts of —,” she says, both swallowing her instinct to say Kalen’s name out loud and putting aside her thoughts about how much she wants to lecture Angus. Meanwhile, all around them, they can hear voices raised, arguments starting up, fights breaking out, as the Zone of Truth fills most of the first floor of the building.

“Oh, Kalen?” he says in a voice too loud to be a whisper, but at least no one is paying attention, what with everything else going on. “Well, first off, according to my cousin, he’s going by Marcus something or another these days.” The halfling continues to ramble on about his cousin, falling in with bad types prospecting for silver, the various ogre tribes that live in the Dragonsword Mountains, and what it's like to be a halfling living among orcs “no offense, bro.”

Merle’s hand hits the table. “He’s actually not an orc. Not half-orc either!”

Beneath the table, Taako jams the heel of his boot into Merle’s foot and Merle yelps. “Yup,” Taako says, low and calm. “I’m actually three-quarters orc. Just easier to tell folks I’m half. Doesn’t make much of a difference, right? When you’re all talking about us like _that.”_

_“_ I meant no disrespect, y’know… just that you’re about four times my size.” The bard looks nervous now.

“That's not true either —” she starts to say, then bites her lip and stares helplessly at Taako.

“Yeah,” Taako sighs, stretching and making sure to flex one large, greenish bicep. “I’d say I’m at _least_ six times your size. But who’s counting? And anyway my man? Time is money so… Less talking, more…” He drags his thumb across his throat in one swift motion.

The bard waves a hand, half-apologetic. “Right, right, sorry, well….” He looks to Lucretia. “You got a map of the badlands?”

She has a map that _includes_ the badlands: no one has ever properly mapped all the nooks and crannies of it, especially since most of them are full of monsters and aberrations. She lays it out in front of him, though, and he points to a few spots: where he thinks the silver prospecting might be happening, at least one ogre encampment to avoid, and the most likely location of Kalen’s base.

Lucretia takes out a notebook — just one: she'd rather have her backup as well, but unfortunately, it's too well-known of a gesture — and writes down these new details.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice calm and even. “If you speak to anyone of this, I will not hesitate to make you suffer.” It was not quite what she meant to say, but she's not sorry she did.

“Oh yeah, of course, wouldn't dream of it,” he replies. “I should probably get back to work, you know, they really love my playing here.” The halfling gives small nervous nods to each of them before backing away from the table.

When the bard is out of earshot, Taako sets his flagon down with a loud thump. “ _The tall guy?”_ he hisses.

“He told me someone from the old Seeker network _gave_ it to him. If he did this on his own…. I'm furious, but I'm proud of him.” She glares at Merle. “Zone of Truth? Really? Was that necessary?”

“Been too long,” he replies. “Really helps out with this sort of thing, dontcha think?”

Taako and Lucretia look around at the half-dozen fights breaking out around them.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want to cause a scene or anything.” Taako glares. “That was almost a fuckin’ disaster. Totally fuckin’ preventable, Zone of Truth bullshit.”

As Lucretia feels the effect of the spell fading, she abruptly jumps up from the table. “If you'll excuse me, I need to call the Bureau, I forgot to—” She just waves a hand as she sets off into the seething crowd, weaving towards the main door, casting Shield as various chunks of the fight intersect her path.

Inside, Taako drains the last of his drink and leaves the flagon on the table as he gets up and stretches. “Gotta go, uh, call Ren, tell her to cancel my meetings at the school. You good?”

“Yup, good _right_ here.” Merle leans back in his seat. He sips his beer as he watches the fights happening around him, looking pleased with himself. A little honesty ought to help these folks get things out of their system.

Taako climbs the stairs to their rooms and closes the door behind him, pulling his stone of farspeech from his jacket.

* * *

A thousand or more miles away, Angus, Magnus, and Kravitz are eating dinner when Angus’s stone rings. He swallows, sets down his fork with a quiet _clank,_ and stands up to excuse himself. Kravitz’s eyes follow him to the front hall.

“Hi Mom, how's it—”

“Angus. McDonald. What did you do?”

“Can't talk about it right now.” His voice dips to a whisper. “Listening ears.”

“Fine. Good. Then you can use _your_ listening ears. You use _my_ Seekers, you tell me _first_. Not after, not when you get around to it. I know it's not the Grand Relics, but you could have been hurt. Something could have gone wrong, and who would have known?”

At the table, Kravitz’s stone rings, too. Angus hears him murmuring from behind as he tries to reason with his mother.

“Mom—”

“Don't. Just don't.”

Kravitz meets him in the hall, stone in hand, looking hesitant. As Lucretia continues in his ear, Kraviz says, “Ah… Taako’s asking for you.”

“I— I can’t—” Angus points to the stone at his ear. Kravitz puts his own stone in Angus’s hand anyway.

Taako’s voice rings loud and blown out in his ear. “Angus McDonald what the actual _fuck_ do you think—”

“Sir, I didn’t— listen, I can’t—”

“Oh, do not even _sir_ me right now! Did you go all the way to _Hurn?_ You could have eaten shit out here and how would we even find out? Did you even think about what—”

“Of course I thought about it! I— sir, I can’t talk right now, we are _all_ having dinner,” he emphasizes, hoping Taako will get the hint. “And my mom is on the other—”

“Oh! Delightful, I should have guessed. I’d say she should talk some sense into you, but that ship done sailed, huh?”

In his other ear: “Is that Taako? Good, maybe you’ll listen to him if you won’t listen to me.”

Taako continues, “Fine, we’ll talk about this later. If nobody else can keep your nose out of this bullshit, I’ll do it my fuckin’ self.” He lets out a long sigh, the sound itself thick with worry. “Tell your _mother_ I said hello,” he says with an edge, then pauses for a moment. “And… send my love to Maggie and Kravitz. And if I hear any more about this sleuthing shit I swear, Angus…”

“You won’t.” Angus looks anxiously into the kitchen, but Magnus seems to be engrossed in his meal, and Kravitz seems to be pretending to do the same. “Talk soon, love you,” he says quickly, disconnecting the call before Taako can say anything else.

Lucretia lets out a sigh.

“You heard all that?” asks Angus.

Another sigh. “He’s right, and you and I will also talk about this later. _In detail._ ”

“Ma’am—”

She interrupts him again, but with a softer tone. “You did a good job, but you shouldn’t have by yourself. I don’t care how old you are.”

“Tell Taako that I’m sorry?” he says.

“How about you do that yourself the next time you see him,” she replies with a wry chuckle. The call ends and he heads back into the dining room, holding both Kravitz’s and his own stones of farspeech.

Magnus looks up from his spoonful of mashed potatoes. “What was all that about?

Angus sighs and adjusts his glasses, then takes his seat across from Magnus before giving the stone back to Kravitz. “It was Taako and Mom. Stuff about work, um, they’re still… having disagreements over me. It’s pretty awkward. But you know how they are…”

Magnus’s furrows his brow, then nods thoughtfully. “That’s not fair of them. I thought...”

“No, it’s not,” Kravitz agrees, filling the pause. He looks sideways at Angus, who relaxes visibly beside him. “I’ll be sure to talk to him later about that.”

Angus meets Kravitz’s eyes and nods meekly.

* * *

Lucretia skips the melee downstairs, even though it appears to be winding down, in favor of heading up to their rooms. She taps on Taako and Merle’s door, using their old signal from the Starblaster days.

Taako opens the door and she walks past him. “Have a good _talk?”_ he says, still feeling heated.

“I can’t believe he…. Ugh. I hope _one_ of us got through to him.” She walks past him to sit in a rickety chair, letting her disguise drop.

Taako shuts the door and sits on the edge of his bed, wiping a hand over his face. “I don’t—how does he get _that_ deep in this without _you_ finding out?”

She hangs her head back and stares at a water spot on the ceiling. “I don’t run a spy network anymore. I run…. You know.” She laughs ruefully. “He’s a good detective, Taako.”

“I know. And it’s gonna get him into trouble.” He sighs. “It already fuckin’ has, evidently.”

“Indeed. We’re going to have a _conversation_ about it, I think.” Her mouth is set stern and serious. “He needs to trust someone, get some backup, something.”

“Yeah, never heard of _anyone_ like that before.” Taako frowns. Before he can go on about the irony of her statement, the door swings open and Merle walks in.

“Woo! What a rush. Even better than that bar fight way back when.” He looks between Taako and Lucretia and the rest of his thought dies out. “Oh boy, am I interrupting some—”

“Nope, you’re good.” Taako rolls his eyes.

“Used to be you tried to calm down bar fights,” says Lucretia.

“Distraction’s a distraction, sister.”

Taako furrows his brow. “Did we really _need_ a distraction?”

“We absolutely didn’t need a distraction,” says Lucretia, her head in her hands.

“Again, is it even really a good distraction if _neither of you could fucking save?”_ Taako says, remembering what else had pissed him off besides Angus.

From the other chair, where she’s appeared out of nowhere, Carey drops her feet to the floor with a thump. “While you two were off yelling at the world's greatest detective for being a detective, and you were causing havoc—”

Merle holds up a single finger. “Creating. A. Distraction.”

“Whatever. While _all that_ was happening, I saw your little buddy scoot off to talk to some other guy. So I’m pretty sure your distraction was a distraction for _him_ , not for y’all.”

Lucretia grits her teeth. “I specifically said to tell no one, and he said he….” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Well this is fantastic.”

Merle pauses. “Yeah, that part about folks loving his music…”

“Great! The _only goddamn person_ we needed to actually be Zone of Truth-ed _saved_.” Taako waves his hands in mock-enthusiasm.

“At least you saved too,” says Lucretia. “You really kept us out of trouble. Thank you.”

Taako folds his arms. “Yeah, whatever. I’ll add it to your tab.” And, as anger takes his sharp tongue before he can think: “You already owe me plenty.”

She winces.

He realizes what he’s said after it’s already left him, using her own words, the repentance she had offered in a moment of despair in the pocket spa, against her. His eyes flicker down to the floor, avoiding her entirely.

She simply says, “Fair.” Her jaw pulses for a moment as she considers whether to say something else, but now is not the time.

Carey’s eyes flicker back and forth between them.

“So we should probably get up early, huh?” she says. “Get out of here before whoever does whatever?”

“Yeah,” Taako says, flustered, stalking past them to leave the room despite it being his own. “Bright and early.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: If you want to get a sense of the flavor that we were going for, check out [this video of the South Dakota Badlands](https://vimeo.com/166374476). The Dragonsword Mountains are a location in actual Forgotten Realms, but this specific town is our own creation.
> 
> No, clerics don’t usually get Disguise Self. Don’t @ us. “Joan” is epersonae’s version of “Jerry” — the go-to NPC/minor character name. Also, epersonae’s grandma only drank imported Scotch because that was the best way to keep from getting poisoned in Prohibition-era New York. The signal song is [The Mountain Goats’ Heretic Pride](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ6O7Jk4MXs), because of course it is, and is also the source of the title.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last chance to phone a friend. Magnus is loved. Lup isn’t informed. Davenport figures things out. Killian worries.

The tips of Taako’s ears burn red as he takes the two flights of stairs down to the tavern, angry with Lucretia, but kicking himself for being argumentative and embarrassed for fumbling and already making things  _ weird _ . He stops in the doorway, takes a breath, and surveys the room. It’s much calmer now. Most of those who wound up in brawls had been kicked out, and others had drunkenly wandered out into the night. 

There are a few stragglers that the bartender is trying to shoo on home or up to their rooms. A human man lays slumped over the counter and she thumps a flagon down beside his ear to rouse him. Taako slips outside, unnoticed. 

The night is cool, which comes as a relief after the sticky midsummer day. He stretches and breathes for a moment in the quiet. Takes stock of himself. There’s a buzzing inside him, something strung tight in his stomach. He realizes reluctantly that he’s nervous about tomorrow, about this plan, about how much is actually at risk. But he has to do this. He loves Magnus too much  _ not  _ to do this. 

Another deep breath. Hearing Magnus’s voice will remind him why he’s here. He wants to be grounded in the rumble of his laugh, rooted in the sincerity of  _ I love you.  _ And he loves him, too. Deep breath. 

He reaches the frequency for Magnus and waits for him to pick up, fidgeting with the tip of one of his rough disguised fingernails as he does. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, Maggie,” Taako says, sounding a little more eager than he wants to be.

“Taako!” Magnus’s greeting is warm (and loud) as usual. “We miss you.”

Taako smiles. “I miss you too, bubbeleh. Just wanted to call to say goodnight and stuff, um, how was today?” 

“Good! Kravitz made dinner and it was  _ so  _ good. You have some competition.” 

And a second voice, distant, but fond and familiar; “Now, don’t throw me into the fire. I learned the best of what I know from him.” 

“Are you two in bed without me?” Taako pouts. A pause, then a grin that’s surely audible in his words. “What are you wearing right now?” 

Magnus says “Pajama pants,” and Kravitz says, “Don’t encourage him,” in unison. Taako snorts.

“Miss my boys…” Taako says quietly. “I’ll be home soon, and I’ll make up for bailing on you, okay?” 

“When will you be back?” asks Magnus. 

Taako taps his foot rapidly, anxiously, taking a seat on a waist-high stone wall beside him. The two moons hang high in the sky as bright identical crescents. 

“So soon, babe. Don’t you even worry about it, okay?” 

And, Kravitz’s warm voice, closer now. “I’ll keep him busy in the meantime.” 

“What  _ kind  _ of busy? You’re not allowed to have too much fun without me.”

“Use your imagination, darling,” Kravitz teases to the sound of Taako’s whining. 

A satisfied, smiling silence, then Magnus says, “Love you, Taak.”

Taako feels his heart stammer in his chest for a moment, his stomach seizing instantly with butterflies and panic at the same time. He’s worried for tomorrow, worried that somehow this will be the last time he hears those words. 

“I love you too, Mags.” 

Rustling, and Kravitz is clear on the call now. 

“Be safe, dove.” 

“Always am, bone-boy.” He smiles at Kravitz’s chuckle on the other end. “Is McDango still awake?” 

“No, it was a long day for him. He passed out about an hour ago.” 

Taako’s heart sinks a little. “Oh, okay. Well, I’ll just—I’ll try tomorrow, maybe. Tell him I called.” 

“I will. And, ah…” Kravitz goes quiet for a moment. Taako can almost see the way he’s pursing his lips. “Try to take it easy on him, yes? He’s doing his best. He just shouldn’t be in the middle of what you and Lucretia have going on.” And, without giving Taako time to answer, he says, “I love you.” 

“Yeah. Love you too.” 

Taako ends the call, trying not to think too much about it. There’s another voice he needs to hear. He’s a little numb as he puts in another frequency. 

A long wait of ringing, and then his twin answers: “You got Lup!”  

“Sup, Lulu?” Taako says, making an effort to sound casual. “I dunno if you talked to Krav…” 

“No, I’m working a double so he can hang out with your boyfriend,” Lup sighs. “The things I do for this family. But where did you go, anyhow?” 

Taako hesitates. He should tell her where he is, what he’s doing. She should know that much. Taako puts a hand on the stone beside him, drums his fingers on the rough surface.

“Hey, um…” He didn’t even get to say goodbye, but he doesn’t want her to worry. “It was just a work thing, for the cookbook? Some last minute signing. You know how the scheduling has been.” 

“Ugh. You need to practice saying  _ no.”  _

Taako laughs a little. “Can’t disappoint my people.” 

“Whatever. When you get home, you owe me that scroll night we were gonna have this week. And you’re cooking to make up for it.” 

“You’re just gonna make me watch _ Fantasy Die Hard  _ again.” Taako whines. 

“Hey, at least I don’t think it’s a Candlenights scroll.” 

“If you did, I would have to disown you.” 

Lup laughs, and it almost sounds like hearing his own. “Looks like you’re stuck with me in that case, ‘Ko.” 

Taako lets out a short breath. “Love you.” 

“Love you too.” 

As he gets up to walk inside, his legs feel shaky underneath him. Guilt lingers and leaves his throat dry, his chest tight. But nothing will happen. It’ll just be just a few days. She’ll be none the wiser. 

* * *

Merle is restless in the room after Carey and Lucretia take their uncomfortable leave. He’d figured it would be some trouble, working with both Taako and Lucretia, but they seemed to be getting along until… well, all that. But as long as their  _ stuff  _ doesn’t put them in more danger than they have to be, Merle supposes that he doesn’t care. 

(Alright, he cares. But not enough to say anything.) 

He thinks about his own kids, and how he doesn’t want to worry them any more than he has to. Mavis already knows too much for her own good, and knowing her friendship with Angus, Merle worries that she’ll find out more than she should. Damn curious kids. 

But, he figures  _ somebody  _ should know where he is, as much as he doesn’t want to have that conversation. He holds his stone of farspeech still in his hand and reaches a familiar frequency. 

And Davenport’s familiar voice:  “Wow, you're calling me?”

Merle chuckles as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed. “What, can’t a guy just call to say hello?” 

“Sure, of course. But usually I hear from you right before some dumb hijinks with the boys. Don't tell me you're hitting another casino, Highchurch?”

Merle waves a hand, though Davenport can’t see. “No, no, no. Nope. No casino, just, ah… you know! Just hittin’ the bar with old friends.” 

“Merle.” Distantly, Merle hears the sound of waves against Davenport’s boat. “You cagey old bastard.”

“Alright, alright. We’re just doing a favor for Magnus, that’s all. We’re… I dunno, Dav.” 

“We?” As Davenport’s question hangs for a moment, Merle swallows. “Don't tell me you're taking Mavis and Mookie on some hairbrained adventure. They're still kids.”

“No! Jeez, I’m not the  _ worst  _ dad in the world. I wouldn’t put them in danger like this.”

As soon as he says it, Merle frowns, realizing the Fantasy Pandora’s Box of questions he probably just opened, knowing Davenport. 

Davenport clears his throat. “What kind of danger?”

Merle groans and gets out of bed, starting to pace the creaking wooden floor. “Okay, listen: let’s just get this out there and over with…” 

“I'm listening.”

“So…  _ maybe _ …. we found that dickweed who killed Magnus’s wife, and maybe we’re going to kill him? Guy’s a total tool, and we promised Mags we would, and… I don’t know, it was all very last minute, you know how assassinations are.” 

Davenport hums thoughtfully. 

“So you and Taako…. Jeez, Merle.”

Merle stretches and lets out a big sigh. “Yup! Me and Taako, band’s back together, just…” He teeters on the edge of  _ just telling the truth  _ but he can’t quite force the words out. He hopes it’s enough to ward off more questions. “Don’t… think too much about it.” 

“That sounds incredibly dangerous, just the two of you? You should have called before, if I could have helped… Now I'm just going to worry….” He sighs. 

Merle’s resolve weakens at the thought of Davenport worrying over him. “No, honey, don’t— don’t worry about me, alright? We’ve got it handled, we… have a team, and  _ they  _ know what they’re doing, so don’t sweat it. I mean Carey, this is pretty much her job!” He chuckles to hide his nerves. 

“Okay, Carey, that’s great, she’s very good at her job, and she's a friend of Magnus’s, makes sense. I guess three is better than two.” Merle can hear Davenport pacing as he thinks it through: always the strategist. “That puts my mind at some ease, dear. I just, you know, when you call out of the blue….”

Merle sits in the chair in the corner of the room and puts his chin in his hand. “I know,” he says quietly.  

“How'd you find him, anyway? Guy like that has to be pretty tough to track down.”

Merle squeezes his eyes shut, opens them, and grumbles “Ah, fuck it” to himself. A deep breath, and then: “Well, ‘Cretia got some intel for us, yeah.” 

“Lucretia.” Davenport’s tone instantly turns icy. “Dammit Merle, really?”

“I made a promise to Magnus that if I ever had the chance to take this douche out, I would. So I am, alright?” 

“Alright. Alright. I can hear that. I don't like it, though. She's…. I just….” His voice breaks into the slight stammer that comes out when he's especially worried or angry or just under more stress than he can handle. “I wish…. I wish you wouldn't… But….”

“We’ve been over this,” Merle responds plainly. He rubs his good eye and wonders why he even bothered telling him the truth anyway. “You don’t have to like it, but I’m still…” he sighs, not wanting to finish the thought. The subject is still too sore to even breach. 

“You're you, and that's just who you are.” Davenport sighs, both exasperated and fond. “I shouldn't complain, it's what I've always loved about you.”

“And you’re a stubborn ass who worries too much. And that’s what I’ve always loved about  _ you.”  _

Merle grins, and he can feel Davenport smiling on the other end, too, however reluctant he might be.

“Well, be careful for once in your damn life.”

“I will. Promise. And you, don’t sweat this, alright? I’ll be fine. Always am.” 

“Luckiest dwarf I know. I'll send you a card when I get to a port. Or, y’know, you could answer your stone once in a while.”

Merle smirks, reclining in his seat. “I like playing hard-to-get.” 

* * *

Hours later, in the quiet town square, the sun comes up on what looks to be a close humid day. Lucretia had never really gotten to sleep; her usual light sleeping, nervous energy for what they were about to do, along with the abysmal bed: it all combined to keep her tossing and turning. She stares off to the west, as if she could see both Kalen somewhere in those mountains, and far beyond, Magnus, probably still asleep. She wonders if he’s in bed with Kravitz, even without Taako there. She’s grateful for all the others who love Magnus, who are watching out for him while they’re here.

Just a quick message, she thinks. Something so that she can hear his voice, and then later, he can hear her voice. That’ll be nice.

Instead: “Hello, Magnus Burnsides, who’s this?” Relief she hadn’t expected washes over her at the sound of his actual voice, soft and rumbling, like he’s trying not to wake other people. In her startlement, she almost ends it there.

“Oh. I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

He laughs. “Naw, I was up already. Hard time sleeping. You know how it is. What’s up, Luce?”

“Nothing, really. Was just going to leave you a message, wanted to hear your voice.” Her reply is soft, almost apologetic. She runs a hand over a low stone wall. 

“Well, you’re hearing it now.” She can hear him smiling, imagine him standing in Taako’s kitchen in the middle of the night, a little piece of home for him there too.

“It sounds really nice.”

“Oh, now you’re just being silly.”

“Maybe?” It’s easy, just being gentle and teasing with him. What is it going to be like to look at him again, the next time she sees him?

“How’s everything at reaper house? Everyone behaving themselves?”

“Dango got in yesterday, but Taako had to take off, which was kind of a bummer. Something with his cookbook, I guess? Kravitz made a really good…something for dinner. He’s been picking up some techniques for sure. Hey, everything still cool with you and Taako?”

“Well….” She shrugs, not that he can hear it. “You know how it is.”

“I thought it was getting better?”

“It is, I think, it’s just….” Funny, for a minute there it was like old times, wasn't it? And now Taako’s angry again, but she hopes they can at least patch it up for Magnus’s sake. Either way, she can’t tell him what had happened or why.

“You can talk to me about it anytime, you know that, right? I just don’t like you guys getting Ango in the middle of it.”

“Of course.” She takes a deep breath, lets out a long sigh, and looks up at the steel-grey sky, out at the jagged crags of the Dragonswords. 

“Some things just take time, honey,” he says. “And you know how Taako is, so if you two need to back off of talking again, that’s cool.”

She chuckles as she squints at the upper windows of the inn. Taako might be awake by now. Soon they’ll need to leave Hurn. For a second, she fears she might never see Magnus again, that something will go horribly wrong.

“Magnus?”

“Yes, Lucretia?” The sound of his voice saying her name almost breaks her heart, almost breaks her resolve. If she could have told him then, if he could have understood it, maybe she would have.

Instead: “I love you.”

“Love you too. Talk to you later, maybe?”

“Uh…. I’m going to be pretty busy the next few days. We’ll catch up later this week?”

“Sounds good. Angus says there’s some museum he wants to take me and Krav to, not really my thing, but I’m sure we’ll have fun. Don't work too hard, okay?” Again, she’s suffused with gratitude for all the love in his life, everyone else there for him now.

“I'll try.” After the stone goes silent, she tucks away the pendant. She squares her shoulders and tries to put him out of her mind so she can focus on the mission.

* * *

Carey rolls over in bed as Lucretia walks out of their room, then fishes her stone of farspeech out of the bag under her bed.

“Hey Kils.”

“Miss you already, Care.”

“You too.”

“How’s it going so far?”

“It’s okay. Merle started a bar brawl, if that says anything.”

“He kick anybody’s ass?”

“Naw, it was all Zone of Truth bullshit.”

They both start laughing.

“Seriously, though,” says Killian, “is it cool?”

“Hard to say. The whole scene is fucking sketch, for sure.”

Killian grunts.

“Yeah, I know,” says Carey by way of reply. “It’s probably a bad idea. Somebody’s got to look out for the boss, though.”

“You’ve got it in the bag, babe. Give that guy a couple extra stabs for me, okay?”

“You know I will.” She makes excessive kissy noises at Killian, who responds in kind, until they’re both breathless and laughing again.

“Be safe.”

“Always. Love ya.”

“You too.”

Carey sighs a little as she puts the stone back. She almost wishes they’d brought a whole crew. If Lucretia had let her, she could’ve scrounged up most of the old-timers. Too late now, though. She lays back down and tries to catch a bit more sleep before they have to go.

* * *

“It was them?” asked the gravelly voice, made even rougher by the poor connection. “The birds, you're sure?”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely.” He pauses, swallows. “Some of ‘em, anyway. I told you cousin Jimothy would come through. He's a real softy for that hero shit.”

“Good work. You're doing the right thing.”

“Tell the big guy I appreciate it. Means a lot to me to earn that trust.”

“Just stick to the plan. This all comes together and you're set for life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time zones: always a challenge, both as writers and in the work.
> 
> Also, because this is us, have [a smutty interlude featuring Kravitz and Magnus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332281) by epersonae, set immediately after their conversation with Taako.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang gets some breakfast. Cousin Jerry provides information. Monsters are encountered. And everybody is really awkward.

The rising sun is casting long shadows between the buildings of Hurn as Lucretia walks back to the inn after finishing her conversation with Magnus. She’s said everything she thinks she can say, and yet she feels unsettled, like there’s something left hanging undone. As she spots a young man lazily sweeping the front porch, she guesses from his face that he’s a relative of the bartender, and that reminds her: in all their sniping the previous evening, she never dealt with the issue of the halfling’s betrayal. Assuming it was a betrayal. Either way, she needs to find out.

“Young man,” she says in a querulous tone that matches her disguise. He looks up, leans against his broom.

“Yeah.”

“The little fellow who played last evening,” she continues, holding her hand out at waist level to indicate a halfling, “where might one find him, of a morning? He was kind enough to play a song for me and I never got a chance to thank him.”

He looks at her with an expression of pure bafflement.

“Jimothy? I don’t know where he sleeps. Turns up here around noon most days if you’re not in a hurry. Might be he stays with some of the smalls that live down in the underhill.”

“Underhill?” She debates whether it's suspicious to ask more.

Taako steps out onto the porch with the same half-orc disguise he’s been wearing, meets her eyes, and sighs. “Grandma, we can’t keep doing this. Don’t bother this guy with questions.”

“Of course, dearie. I simply wanted to thank that nice young fellow for indulging an old lady.” She sighs as well, a bit over dramatically. “Just let him know his kindness was much appreciated.”

The guy shrugs and goes back to his sweeping.

“Just a bard doing his job,” says Taako. “Come on, let’s have some breakfast.” Lucretia follows Taako into the inn and he lowers his voice to a hiss. “Fuckin’ seriously? You put a second moon in the sky and you don’t know how to lay low about _anything?”_

“I was hoping to get a lead, find out who Carey saw him talk to, you know, _prepare_ a little?”

He glances over his shoulder as they approach the bar. The same old woman from yesterday is there, and she looks just about as happy to see them as she did then.

“That’s fine. Sure, fine, yeah, let’s just, for sure, get on this prick’s radar. That’s what we need.”

She glares up at him, feeling at a disadvantage with their disguises’ differences in height. Deep breath: in through her nose, out through her mouth. Forced smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

“If you say so. Let's just get the others up and get going.”

“I’m having breakfast. You wanna go out there on an empty stomach, it’s your fuckin’ funeral.” Taako rolls his eyes. “I’m not carrying you when you pass out, and I’m not conjuring you Fantasy Luna Bars.”

“I have gorpp,” she says, and Taako grimaces. “But breakfast is probably a good idea.” She glances at the tavern side. “I just hope it's halfway edible.”

Taako narrows his eyes but decides against a quip on having finnicky taste for an _adventurer._ She’s being more civil than he wants her to be. He’s about to order food for them both when he spots Merle waving at them both from his table across the room. Taako frowns and heads in his direction, and Lucretia follows.

“Just tell me it’s better than gorpp,” she says as they approach.

“It’s hot and there’s plenty of it,” says Merle. “Dig in.” They do, and it’s not terrible; it’s not great either, but that’s just how adventuring goes. They wait for Carey to turn up, which she does, holding a mug of something she claims to be coffee.

“I got this,” she says, waving it at them, “and I had my granola. Ready whenever you all are.”

* * *

Multiple trails lead off into the badlands, but one is much more traveled than the others, and it matches the information they’d received. From there, the transition from the dry but open rolling grasslands to the narrow crevasses of the Dragonsword Mountains is abrupt.

At first, it’s quiet: small birds and other creatures heard but unseen. The air crackles with the heat as the trail winds through canyons of pale striated rock; they gain altitude slowly but steadily. There’s no vistas here, the ways are close and narrow with only an occasional view of the flatlands they’ve left behind.

If they had seen Hurn long before they approached it, they can’t see the mining camp until they're practically in it. Instead, they hear and smell it; they feel the ground rattling from little explosions. The breeze carries whiffs of acrid chemicals and woodsmoke. And along the trail they begin to spot older exploratory digs since abandoned. Grey smears of tailings leach into rivulets; the plants that grew around them are all dead.

Merle wrinkles his nose. “Smells like farts.”

“What are you _eating?”_ Taako ponders with disgust, watching Merle crouch down to touch a dead plant.

“We can’t all be wizard chefs, bucko. Fantasy frozen dinners do a number on your guts.” Taako makes a horrified noise close to a wail. Merle thumbs a blackened leaf, ignoring Taako behind him. “Poor things.”

Lucretia pokes another plant with her end of her staff and shakes her head, before taking out the rough map from the halfling.

“We must be close,” she says. “Time to meet this cousin, hopefully he can get us a way in. Or a little more useful information.”

“I still don’t really get why we’re doing this, I mean… is this not, like, the _most_ obvious thing we could be doing?” Taako says, motioning towards the encampment. “‘Hey everybody, just a couple of dudes and an old lady lookin’ for a warlord.’”

“Well, with _disguises obviously_ , and also thank you for remembering Carey, and what would you suggest instead? It’s not as though this is exactly an ‘X marks the spot’ map,” she says, holding her notebook out to the others.

“One: I was _talking_ about our disguises, so you just called yourself an old lady. Two: I figured Carey would be on the lookout again but she’s _welcome_ to come with. And three: I dunno, seems to me that walking in there asking around for the _actual literal Governor Kalen_ by whatever name he’s going by now, and/or information relating to him is _maybe_ the _worst_ idea possibly _ever.”_

“First of all, I can do other disguises, secondly we’re going in asking for a halfling named Jerry, and third, thank you for admitting that I could actually have even worse ideas.”

Taako rolls his eyes. “Don’t be an _idiot,_ you know what I’m saying. Asking for any of this shit puts us on the radar, and the last thing we fuckin’ need is _any_ of this going south, considering this runs deeper than you _let on.”_

Already certain she’s going to regret asking, she says, “And what do you mean by that?” Behind her, Carey grimaces.

“What I _mean_ is that I was under the impression this was a four-person gig, and if we fuck up, that’s our problem. But nope, actually, we’ve got _Angus_ involved? Like, seriously?”

“I already told you, I didn’t _know_ he was that involved, I didn’t _get_ him involved, he did this —” Her voice starts rising despite herself, but Carey cuts her off.

“Boss, not to interrupt this _whatever_ you two got going on, but boy detective aside, Taako’s got a point. Us turning up randomly like that, it’s not necessarily gonna look great, especially if somebody got here ahead of us.”

Taako looks a little smug beneath his anger. “You go ahead, I don’t care, _Creesh_. I’ll be the first to say ‘I told you so.’”

“You done?” Merle asks, and Taako stares at him for a moment before taking a few steps away.

Lucretia takes a second to let her frustration ebb before turning to Carey.

“Given that,” she says, completely ignoring both Taako and Merle, “what would you suggest for information gathering?”

Carey frowns slightly and taps a toe on the dirt.

“I mean, we could just sneak around the edges and try and find this guy Jerry, but….” She shakes her head. “Okay, you guys and your disguises, should be pretty easy, not go in all together, maybe act like we’re delivering something? Just one or two folks? After all, it’s not like we necessarily have to talk to that guy, right? Just better intel on where we need to go next?”

“I'll go,” says Lucretia, squaring her shoulders. “If I'm not back in 15 minutes, well…. Do whatever you're going to do.” She casts Disguise Self and transforms into a snaggle-toothed human boy with bad skin.

As she starts to walk away, Taako disguises himself as a pudgy human man, looking travel-worn and dirty. He follows behind her.

“Last thing we need is more trouble than we’re already _in_ ,” he mutters, then clears his throat in favor of speaking in a lower register once they come upon the encampment.

She pauses to let him catch up, but doesn't say anything to him.

An orc looks up from stirring a pot over a smoky fire.

“Hey. You all here to get started? Got plenty of room for folks with strong backs.”

“Uh, no, we're, um,” she makes her voice thin and reedy to go with the nervous verbiage, but also, she has no idea what they're supposed to be delivering or pretending to deliver. She’d let Taako’s barbs get to her and now she has no idea what to do next.

Taako lets out a long, deep sigh, and his voice is even lower when he speaks.  “I’m out here lookin’ to do my job, deliver some documents and a package to Marcus. Been a courier since forever, basically, and I’m just tryin’ to show my boy here the ropes, pick up the family business, you know how it is. But we got lost, see, so we’re looking for a way out to the fortress so we can get back to town.”

She looks at him and silently mouths _thank you_ before jumping in. “Oh yeah, yup, and uh, we got a letter for a Jerry, if you got one of those.”

The orc harrumphs. “North trail, you should know that by now. And up here you don't gotta call him ‘Marcus’, we're proud to be Kalen's crew. And you mean little Jerry afraid of spiders? He's on smelter duty, I think.” He shrugs towards a shed where they can see fires burning.

Taako nods to the orc. “Thanks, my boy here, he just wanted to take a look around. Real interesting uh, landscape, you know, then we got lost and—“

“I’m real sorry, pop, I’m sure this guy doesn’t need our whole life story. Sir, we’ll just deliver our mail and be on our way.” She starts walking towards the shed, trying not to look as nervous as she feels. The orc doesn’t say anything, just keeps stirring.

Taako turns and follows Lucretia. When they’re out of earshot, he mumbles, “I had it covered.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to draw attention,” she whispers back.

“You’re the one who just asked for Jerry by _name,_ but _alright.”_

She clears her throat when she enters the shed, the hot air heavy with the smell of coal and metal and sweat. Several filthy faces look in their direction, including a couple of halflings.

“Letter for Jerry?” she says. A halfling with eyes very similar to Jimothy’s nods.

“From mom?” That was supposed to be the signal. “I’ve got one to send back if you can take it.”

She nods. He hands off his spot on the bellows to a young human woman with huge biceps, then leads them out of the shed and over to a small tent just off of the main clearing. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around.

“Good you all got disguises. Not a lot of fans of the whole _seven birds clean up the world_ thing out here. Which ones are you, anyway? Cousin Joan was supposed to get ahold of somebody worked for that busybody erased everybody’s brains.” His eyes flick back and forth between them. Lucretia tries not to wince. “Dunno which of them is still talking to her enough to come along, Jimothy said the big guy was gonna be out for Kalen, but it’s been this long….”

When neither of them respond, he clears his throat nervously. “Well, okay, you got a map?” She holds out her drawing and he grabs a nub of charcoal. “You got ogres here, here, and here, and they all work for him. You want to go this way” — he draws a line up a ravine — “if you’re going to avoid the worst of them. That should get you up by a side door.” He scratches his head. “Anything else?”

She shakes her head, then glances at Taako. He doesn’t look back, only raises his gaze to Jerry.

“So, what do you get out of this whole deal, compadre?”

The halfling shrugs and looks past them to the clearing.

“That is an excellent question,” says Lucretia. She's dropped the boyish voice and her tone is low and sharp. “Please, Jerry, answer the man.”

He squirms a little before answering. “It's just…. Truth be told…. Been thinking about it a while, since I got in with these guys, it's not an easy situation, you know? And then last family reunion, cousin was bragging about being a spy, for you, I guess, back in the day, and I thought ‘sure why not’, couldn't hurt, might help, right?”

Taako stares at him for an unbearably long moment, eyes narrowing slightly through his disguise.

Finally Jerry says, “Listen, Burnsides isn’t the only one Kalen fucked over. I’m getting the same thing out of this as you are. But you can thank me later.”

Lucretia nods. “Fair enough.” Then she stands, saying, “I think we have what we need. Thank you, sincerely.”

* * *

As they walk up the trail after meeting up with Merle and Carey, Lucretia drifts to the back of the group, lost in her own thoughts. What if it is her fault, somehow, that Angus had gotten into this? The idea of it nags at her and she can’t let it go, not that she can say anything about it either. In front of her, Taako stalks forward as they march on. At his side, Merle seems to ignore him, but Lucretia knows better. Carey slips ahead of them, moving from shadow to shadow.

“I’m sure Angus didn’t mean to worry you,” says Lucretia into the uncomfortable silence.

Taako’s jaw tenses and Merle looks from him to Lucretia. The only sound is the crunching of their footsteps beneath them.

“Not worried, not about him,” Taako snips. “Only that your track record with _plans_ isn’t great, and the 31 different flavors of _fucked_ this could get have now expanded to involve him.”

Carey’s voice emerges from somewhere in the rocks. “What the hell, man? What part of ‘Angus does his own shit’ do you not understand?”

“He’s a _kid_ , and I don’t remember asking y—“

“How old was Maggie when we went to _space?”_ Merle asks and waves a hand at Carey when Taako looks away. “Let’s not underestimate him. Kid’s smart. Smarter than Magnus, that’s for sure.”

Taako scoffs and presses forward, his steps getting longer to put distance between himself and the rest of the group. Lucretia lets out a small soft sigh and looks at his back. She shakes her head when Merle looks at her with a questioning expression.

Carey clears her throat. “Heads up, buttercups,” she says, but by the time any of them look where she was standing, she’s not there anymore. Just as they notice the ogre coming down a side trail—complete with a small herd of giant spiders—she’s leaping down from a cliff face and burying her daggers into the back of his neck before leaping off of his shoulders back up onto the rocks.

It reaches back for something to grab ahold of, and its hand comes away soaked in blood. It roars in pain and rage and lunges forward, swiping its spiked club like a bat that connects soundly with Merle’s shoulder. Merle groans but stands his ground. “I’m fine,” he groans, still standing his ground. “Just a little bunt to set up everybody else for the run.”

Taako looks quickly between the ogre, Merle, and the four spiders moving forward. As he turns, a silvery mass of webbing flies narrowly past his head and connects with the rock behind him with a loud _splat!_ He makes a noise of disgust before extending his wand, but before he can cast, the three smaller spiders scuttle beneath and around their mother and bite at his calves.

“Ew, fuck!” Taako yelps, trying to kick one off. As he does, its fangs sink into his ankle. “Hey!” he shouts as he casts Magic Missile haphazardly at the three spiders. “You’re really starting to _bug_ me!” And three rapid darts of glowing blue light shoot from his wand and connect with each of them as they squeal and retreat some.

“Arachnids, surely,” says Lucretia. “And go for the _ogre_ , please?”

“Don’t kill my vibe!” Taako shoots back. “Lemme just lose a leg to some giant fucking spiders while I shoot at some dude who’s not even looking at me!”

“Spider bullshit,” Merle mutters before raising a hand to cast Healing Word. His own breathing eases slightly as he says, “This better?”

“Yeah, thanks for the handful of chewable aspirin, _Dad.”_

“‘Least I healed you!”

Meanwhile, Lucretia aims her staff and casts Hold Person at the ogre. It lets out another shout in a language none of them understand before freezing in place. Carey jumps down again. This time, when her daggers connect, it simply topples forward and is still.

As he dodges the falling body, Taako is distracted once again. The mother spider flings yet another web in his direction and this time it connects, sending him back reeling back against the rocks behind him and pinning him there in a mass of sticky silken strings.

Taako groans, disgusted. In an instant, he blinks out of view, leaving the pocket of webbing empty. A moment later, he appears by the fallen ogre next to Carey.

“Really?” Carey looks unimpressed as she cleans the ogre’s blood off her dagger.

“Oh, come on!” Merle groans as the spiders turn their attention to him. He readies himself to cast Sacred Flame on the mother towering over him, but Lucretia waves him off. Instead, he shields his face, hoping the spider doesn’t just decide to web him too before Lucretia puts a stop to it.

Lucretia turns her staff on the spiders, a brilliant cone of many-colored light flooding their multipart eyes. After the baby spiders reel backwards and stumble away, she shakes her staff at the mother. For a moment the spider appears poised to strike, but instead she skitters away after her young.

Taako brushes some residual webbing off of his clothes and kneels beside the fallen ogre, searching for pockets in his armor.

“This damn spider shit again; I hate those things,” Merle says, rolling his sore shoulder.

Carey gives them all a long searching look. “How exactly did y’all manage to, you know, save the world or whatever?”

“I’m rusty!” says Merle peevishly. “Don’t exactly go running around fighting giant spiders so much these days.”

Carey frowns and tilts her head. “You, like, literally train adventurers, right?”

Merle sputters.

Taako rolls his eyes. “I _could_ have been done in one. _Trying_ to save my slots for when we actually need ‘em, but, we can also just go around stabbing random dudes too; that’s cool.” The pockets on the ogre’s pants are empty.

“Carey, dear, that was excellent work, but I was hoping to perhaps _interrogate_ ….” says Lucretia, waving a hand at the dead ogre.

“Ma’am, you did say to go for the ogre. I went for the ogre.”

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Subdue. I meant subdue so we could perhaps interrogate and maybe learn something before we encounter, say, a dozen of them?”

But at the same time, Lucretia smiles. They're squabbling, sure, but it's good. The last time she was out in the wilderness, she was half-dead and alone, fleeing Wonderland. Before that, before the years of fruitless searching for Relics, was the Sisyphean task of finding the Light, waiting for the Hunger, always barely a step ahead. This is different, still awkward and fumbling but the glimmer of a team. And getting to see Carey at work, for the first time, really. _Maybe I should go adventuring once in a while_ , she thinks.

Taako has much better luck with the ogre’s vest, finding a pocket with some gold pieces and silver ore. In another, a map. Taako frowns as he moves to a pocket that’s stuffed with something hard and lumpy.

He hesitates before he opens the pocket. An ogre in a vest. It’s been years since the initiation at the Bureau, when he had practically stumbled, unconvincingly playing the _brave_ one, into an arena of ogres. And for what?

Lucretia saw them for the first time in a decade and she threw them into the fire, then out into a broken world that was still starving for the Relics. Taako’s mind tripped over the thought. No, that wasn’t the first time she’d seen him—no, she came to _Sizzle it Up—_

Taako swallows, pushing the thoughts quickly, perhaps frantically, from his mind. “Yeah, well, next time you want something done, maybe tell us what we’re doing first,” he snaps.

She lets out a long sigh, her spirits deflating slightly with her breath.

Merle clears his throat. “Well, all I gotta say is I’m glad Maggie’s not here, or else we woulda been talking him down out of a tree right about now.”

Taako stands up, his sharp gaze softening as he laughs a little. “Yeah, he’ll train under a huge bear, but literally _any_ spider? Yeesh.” He holds out the loot retrieved from the ogre’s pocket: a handful of spider treats. “Seems like this dude and Mags have something common, though. Pocket full of _spider treats?_ Like it’s his dog?”

Lucretia and Carey exchange a meaningful look. Brian used to keep a bag like that. A much nicer, cleaner, and more stylish bag, but with the same intent.

“Well, uh, you know, some folks and their ranchos,” says Carey. “When they're little, especially…. I think Mags woulda liked—” She stops abruptly. “Anyway. What else you got there?”

Taako flicks a gold piece in her direction, followed by the map. He’s both impressed and disappointed when she catches them both with ease and opens the folded paper.

Her tongue flicks out as she examines the map of a group of buildings at the end of a trail. It’s not made by ogres, that’s for sure; the penmanship is crisp and clear, a few key locations labeled with both words and symbols: delivery door, weapon storage, the master’s chambers, kitchens, and so on.

“Good luck, I think,” she says. “Looks like buster here was carrying a map of Kalen’s fortifications.” She holds it out to the others. Lucretia takes it, holds it open so they can all look at once.

“Niiiice,” Merle says, tracing a wooden finger over the paper without direction. “A map of exactly what we needed!

Taako sighs, tracing a line from the delivery door to the master’s quarters with a wary finger. “Yup. Exactly what we needed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this fight, and a few others, we rolled to establish initiative and for the combat itself; it gave us some challenging situations, which honestly was a lot of fun. Unlike the boys, we ignored rolls if we thought it was a better fit narratively. (Suspicious look at Travis.) epersonae would like to thank the Android apps CritDice and 5th Edition Spellbook for making it possible to do all this while in coffeeshops and on the bus. Thanks also to A.C. for giving a couple of sports ignoramuses enough baseball info to make a joke that we thought Clint might make.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle gives Lucretia a little advice. Carey tells Taako to cool it. A plan is formed. Angus decides that everything is fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor drug references in this chapter, calling back to some Stolen Century weed shenanigans but no actual use in the text. (If you read [Warmer, Kinder](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13876392), then basically that.)

Between the four of them, they quickly pull the ogre’s body back into the brush, hoping it’s far enough off of the trail that none of Kalen’s people notice right away. They continue on the same way until the sun goes down among the mountains and long shadows cross the trails. After a quick discussion, for once everyone is in agreement that Carey and Taako scout ahead to the stronghold. 

As they walk away, Merle and Lucretia set up camp a few hundred yards off of the trail, in a clearing among some trees. Once it’s set, the two of them can only wait for their companions’ return, sitting quietly on a couple of logs they’ve dragged into place.

“Thank you for letting me be part of—” She waves a hand. “All this.”

Merle snorts. “This is kinda your gig in the first place. You’re the one who just showed up at my house.” 

She shakes her head very slightly. “This was your promise, though, not mine. I just had information.”

Merle is quiet for a moment, deciding what to say. “Y’know, you gotta cut this whole ‘oh, thank you, sorry, sorry’ thing. Taako can smell it from a mile away. And he’s… I dunno. You’re here! So be here.” 

For a second she flushes, then chuckles. “You sound a bit like Angus,” she says, ignoring his mumble of  _ like Angus.  _ “It's just…. Things are still a bit tentative, I suppose.” 

This time Merle snorts even louder. “No shit.” 

Her laugh this time is big and open, a rare sound. “That obvious?” 

“Here I was thinking somehow things were goin’ pretty well,  _ all things considered,  _ but I guess I should have known. He’s…” Merle hums, tapping his foot in the dirt. “Y’all seemed to be doing alright at the graduation, but that’s different.”

“Well...that was what got us talking.” She pauses. “To be fair, Angus and Magnus got us talking. Sort of.” A wry laugh. “As much as we manage to, literally ever.”

Merle scoffs. “A miracle. Especially because getting  _ anything  _ out of  _ either  _ of you is like pulling teeth with chopsticks.” 

“Surely not….” She wants to protest, then thinks back on all the conversations they’ve both avoided. “Okay, fine, fine, yes. We’ll both hold out until the heat death of the universe to talk about anything. But we did, and we are, and I think he doesn’t  _ hate _ me now? And maybe there are a few things I—” She takes a deep breath and kicks a pinecone across the clearing. “Things I understand better, which is funny, because I feel like I have new things to apologize for? But also not?”

“Alright, slow down now, you all—you  _ talked  _ about—?” 

She gives him a long-suffering look.

“About how I,  _ you know _ , made all of you forget a hundred years of your lives? About Lup, a little bit, sort of. About the whole, um….” She winces; even remembering that conversation makes her want to sink into the earth below them. “...Sizzle It Up, and all that. Wonderland, I guess? All the greatest hits.”

“Well… can’t say that was the answer I was expecting. I just kinda figured you guys gave up on fighting. Or started putting it aside for Maggie’s sake. But…” 

“Yeah, weird how that happened,” she says after a little pause, then: “How did you do it, Merle?” 

“What, get Taako to talk?”

“I mean, that is an interesting question, and I assume involves some amount of weed, but that isn't what I meant. How did you stand parley, having those conversations, going back over and over, when you knew John was just going to kill you?”

Merle watches the fire, thinking. He almost smiles. “I thought things would change. I always hoped they would. I thought if I could just have  _ one more try… _ ” He waves a hand dismissively. “Maybe I wanted to understand.”

“Hm. I suppose it's somewhat like that. Not that I would compare Taako with, you know.” She lets out a long sigh, staring off into the distance. “Turns out there was a lot I didn't understand. Even when I thought I did.” 

“It’s always that way, isn’t it? And even more, with him…” There’s a pause, Merle thinking silently about the Taako that Lucretia still doesn’t quite know. Merle laughs a little bit. “Way back when, I asked John if he was my friend. It was probably a dumb as shit question, but… Ah, I dunno.” 

“Perhaps not, you spend enough time with someone, and there’s a closeness….” She’d done the same thing, hadn’t she?  _ Friends? _ And his hand on her knee, was that an answer? “I didn’t ask quite so directly, but I did suggest, or perhaps wonder aloud to him, whether we could be friends again. I might have wanted more than either of us was ready for.”

He raises his brows, lets out a long breath slowly. “Jeez, Creesh. Is it bad that I think that might be up there with me and Johnny boy? That’s…” He pauses, thinking of Taako and Lucretia’s rare confrontations since the Day. “...A tall order. But I guess if we’re keeping track of doing the impossible…” 

“Impossible,” she repeats, the word heavy in her mouth, almost poisonous. “Not so far as that, I hope. I’m not ready to give up quite yet.”

“Well don’t  _ give up  _ on it. I’m just saying, at the end of the day, you can’t change anything about how folks are or what they feel. You can try to understand it, but you never fully will. You can only understand your half of the deal.” He laughs a little. “Which is usually some shit.” 

“There’s a metaphor here about shit and gardens here,” she says. “Damned if I can find it, though. It’s not as though I’m constitutionally capable of keeping plants alive anyway.”

“And there’s a sex joke here about plants that I’ll spare you from, sister.” 

She snort-laughs. “Thank goodness for small blessings.”

“Yeah, well, it sounds like you’ve got enough on your plate as it is. But don’t expect me to have this restraint next time.” He chuckles, trying to reel himself in to continue their conversation. “Taako, he’s a handful and a half. We’ve all known that from the get-go.” 

“You want to hear something weird?”

“Sure do.” 

“ _ He  _ apologized to  _ me _ . I still….” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to make of it, really. I’m not even sure I know  _ why _ .” When she closes her eyes, she can see Taako as he was that day in the pocket spa, the way he’d been so vulnerable and then just as quickly played it off again. 

“We’re talking about the same Taako?” 

“Big hat, a lot of swearing, hangs out with Death? The very same. Trust me, I’ve been as...well, maybe more so. I’m just grateful, I never thought we’d even get to this, whatever  _ this _ is.” She looks up at the first stars of the evening.

“But it’s still not easy, huh.”

“What would be the fun in that?” she says wryly. “And then—you know I didn’t ask Angus to look for Kalen, right? But of course, Taako hears ‘seeker’ and thinks somehow I made all this happen? As if I were still running the old Bureau?” She gives an exasperated sigh. “Not that I’m not grateful to be able to do this….”

“He knows it’s not your fault.  _ Everyone  _ knows the little shit’s got his nose where it shouldn’t be half the time anyway.” Merle sighs. “Taako cares about him. Means he’s got something to lose. He’s got  _ a lot  _ to lose.” 

She grimaces. “The last thing I want is to be responsible for anything that would cause him to lose his family again. And yes,” she says, “I know what you're thinking. This goes the wrong way, we all have a lot to lose. But the idea of dying doing the right thing? Feels different somehow.”

He frowns thoughtfully. That  _ was  _ exactly what he’d been thinking. “‘Cretia, you really oughta stop with this martyr shit. None of us are dyin’ here. You’ve got family to get home to, just like the rest of us. Ya can’t just fall on the sword ‘cause you wanna make it all up to Magnus.” 

“Don't worry about that, Merle. I'm not planning on falling on any swords. Only that if this were to be it…. There's a lot worse ends out there.” 

“Guess so. Some guy might kill your ass sixty times, so this douche killing you once is nothin’.” He rolls his eyes. “You’re smart, I know that,  _ you  _ know that, so just… don’t let this shit with Taako get in the way and you’ll be set. That’s all.”

* * *

Elsewhere in the wilderness, Carey kicks a stone down the path, frowning.

“Maybe we shoulda had a bite before we left, yeah?”

Taako reaches into one of his pockets and produces one of the spider treats he took off the fallen ogre earlier. “Protein.”

She looks at it skeptically. “I guess that counts as food.” She takes a small bite, then grimaces. “Wow. I hope that tastes good to spiders, at least.” He stares at her, mouth agape, as she gives him another look. “Sure you haven’t got something better? I usually carry like a Fantasy Luna bar or whatever, but they’re all in my pack.”

Taako isn’t sure if he wants to laugh or apologize. So he laughs, then asks, “What’cha in the mood for?” 

“Honestly? Killian’s home fries. But, adventuring life, I guess.” She shrugs.

“You haven’t adventured with Taako, kemosabe.” He smirks, then holds out one hand and, with his wand in the other, conjures a fork and a modest dish of shredded and seasoned potatoes. “Now,” he says, handing them to her, “I haven’t had your wife’s home fries, and conjured is never as good as the real thing anyway, but my hashbrowns are pretty dece.” 

“Damn, bud, this is pretty sweet,” she mumbles through a mouthful. “Not the same, for sure, but damn.” She pauses for a moment and looks at him. “I can see why Magnus likes you so much.”

Taako puts a hand to his chest in mock horror. “He only likes me for my  _ cooking?”  _

“Listen, Killian ain't exactly a master chef or whatever, but I would stab a dude to get her to make me breakfast. So I can only imagine, you know, y'all, and that's a guy who can eat some fucking food.”

Taako nods thoughtfully. “That he can. But also, I think you’d stab a dude for any reason? For fun, probably?” She shrugs nonchalantly. He jabs a thumb back in the direction they’d traveled from. “You maybe had a little too much fun with that back there.” 

“Bud, I am good at my job. And sometimes my job involves stabbing a fella.”

“As long as you’re not stabbing  _ me  _ for Killian’s potatoes, I’m Gucci. Taako’s just sayin’.” 

They fall into an awkward silence as they continue to walk, before finding an overlook onto Kalen’s stronghold. There’s an old fortress from some forgotten age, a more recent and poorly-built wall around it, and a collection of little outbuildings. Carey motions for them to get down out of sight and for a long time they just watch.

“You gotta lay off the boss—I mean, Lucretia—about Ango,” she says. 

“Hey? Let’s maybe not. I made you hashbrowns, was that not enough to buy your silence?” 

“Naw, bud, I'm not goofing around. The kid—listen, boss has got a lot of flaws, I'm first to admit it—but the kid? That was all him. He, uh, well, he came to ask me and Kils for advice, a little while back.”

“I rescind my fucking hashbrowns,  _ please  _ tell me you’re joking.” Taako’s caught between anxiety and anger as he fidgets with a rock under his hand. 

She tastes the air with her tongue. “Wish I was. More like, wish I'd realized he was gonna be so squirrelly about it. You gotta know he was gonna go after this no matter what, right? We're talking about Angus and a  _ mystery _ .”

Taako balls a fist, opens it, and wipes his palm over his face in frustration. “That doesn’t mean— dude, you can’t just—” His blood starts to boil and he takes a deep breath, trying to stop himself before he starts. But instead, he says, “So it was you? Do you even realize—“

“Realize what? That the kid is stubborn as hell? That he loves Maggie? That he's probably as smart as all of us put together?” She rolls her eyes. “Remember how he figured out about the BoB all by himself when he was like ten?”

“Something about this?” He motions to the fortress, looming dark in the distance. “Already feels fucking risky. God forbid I don’t want anyone involved who doesn’t have to be. But whatever, too fuckin’ late now, I guess.” 

“You ain't wrong about that, bud.”

He sighs, looks into the binoculars, and finds he can’t even focus on the task at hand. He thinks of Angus. And Kravitz. And Ren. All the people he’s already dragged into their mess. His mess. 

“I know he’s smart and stubborn and a piece of fucking work, all the best and worst parts of his parents. It doesn’t mean it’s time to invite him onboard and get  _ him  _ into trouble too, or…” He mends the crack in his voice before it comes. “Y’know. I didn’t realize that was  _ unreasonable,  _ but thanks for the intervention.” 

“Jeez, you don't need to make it all that. I just see y'all sniping and I know it gets us all distracted. I don't want you to keep throwing her off like that when she's just as freaked out as you are.” She squints down at the fortifications. 

“Well I’m glad to know it was  _ your fault  _ then, and not hers. Problem solved.”

“Okay, sure, whatever. How many dudes they got on that gate?”

Taako peers down through the binoculars and spots a single guard who doesn’t even seem to be paying attention as a cart rolls through the gate. As the door shuts behind it, he looks around and finds nothing else. “Just one.” 

“One? Are you shitting me?” 

“Yup, I’m lying for the hell of it.” He hands her the binoculars, feeling equally as thrown despite his wit. 

She lets the snark roll off of her easily. “Damn. We might actually catch a break.”

Taako says nothing, but he hopes she’s right. 

* * *

When Carey and Taako arrive back at camp, Merle and Lucretia are chatting quietly by the fire, everything set up neatly for the night in the small clearing they’d found. Taako’s sure that’s Lucretia’s doing, considering Merle’s more haphazard approach to adventuring that sometimes included sleeping under the stars like  _ real adventurers  _ when he didn’t feel like pitching a tent. Silently, Taako sets his things down and takes a seat on the log beside Merle. 

“So, how’d it go?” Merle asks, looking from Carey to Taako. “You dig up any secrets about breakin’ into this joint?” 

Taako shrugs. “I’m not the expert here, but dude’s only got one guy on the back gate, so... “ 

“Looks pretty straightforward,” adds Carey, “assuming that map is on the up and up. How we gonna hit this thing? I mean, I could just yoink him for you and we could do it out here real easy.”

“Let’s just get in there,  _ quietly _ ,” Taako makes a point to look at Merle, who raises both hands. “And get him where he sleeps. In and out, no fuss, we’re back on the moon before the sun’s up.” 

Lucretia frowns. “Are you sure? That seems risky, all of us in there together. I mean…” She pauses with a little clearing of her throat. “If you two wanted to, we could wait here.” She hates the idea of all of them getting trapped; she wants to see him die. 

Carey rolls her eyes. “And the point of that is what, exactly?” 

“Yes, of course.” Lucretia’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Then I think Carey’s right: don’t risk all of us, bring him to us.” 

“Yeah, of course, let’s try to wrangle this prick who could break any one of us like a toothpick if he wanted to, and kill him in the wilderness where his thugs walk their pet spiders for fun. Great plan.” He looks pointedly at Carey. “We have an actual literal  _ assassin  _ here and we’re about to go in there and kidnap him? Christ.” 

“I mean, if you want me to slide on in there and slit his throat, I’m happy to help you out, bud. I just figured I could just as easy knock him out and bring him by for all that. Y’all wanna try to sneak” — she too looks significantly at Merle — “into the house where his thugs  _ live _ and do the deed in his bedroom, that just seems like putting a lot at risk.”

“Alright, so you and me just go, problem solved.” Taako leans back and folds his arms neatly, but looks ahead into the fire instead of at Carey or Lucretia. 

Merle snorts. “Alright, bullshit. This isn’t  _ Taako’s epic quest for revenge  _ or whatever, we’re all here doin’ this. So we’re  _ all  _ doin’ it. Yeah, yeah, you promised your boyfriend,  _ whatever,  _ I promised him too. And it’s not like you’re quieter than I am, you just cast lots of spells. Don’t think I don’t know how  _ you two—”  _ He looks from Taako to Lucretia, squinting with his good eye. “—were stealing from my stash in the middle of the night. You’re not as stealthy as you think you are, brother.”

Taako opens his mouth to defend himself, then promptly closes it, cheeks a little pinker by the light of the campfire. “You slept through it all, old man.” 

“We get it, you know how much weed you have on hand at all times,” says Lucretia, while Carey tries to hide her laughter with her hand. “But that aside, it’s a good point. We’re all here for a reason, and while I—” She takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t there to make that promise, I would like to help see it through as well. So either this is a kidnap mission or we all go together.” 

“I’m not  _ jazzed  _ about either, so I’ll leave it in your hands. Who’s gonna carry him all the way out here?” Taako mutters. “Not Taako, that’s for sure.” 

Carey flexes over-dramatically, but doesn’t say anything, letting the others take the lead.

“Let’s look at the map again,” says Lucretia. “Tell me how you think this is going to go? You said there’s only one guard at this side door.” She takes it out and tries to walk them through the route from there to Kalen’s private chambers. She gives Taako a long serious look. “You think we can do this?” 

Taako sighs, a multitude of worries creeping back in as he lets his posture drop. But he looks at Lucretia and knows the weight of her question all at once. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, we can.” 

Merle pumps his fist beside Taako. “Hell yeah! Let’s go kill a dude!” 

Carey still looks skeptical as she says, “For Mags.”

They all echo her, then Lucretia murmurs, “For Julia.” 

By the light of the campfire, Taako holds Lucretia’s gaze for just a moment longer, then nods. 

* * *

Angus McDonald loves natural history museums; he’s aware, of course, that Magnus and Kravitz are mostly humoring him with this trip. But this is one of the best, and one of his favorite stops when he’s visiting Taako and Kravitz.

There’s a new exhibit about the magical geology of the Purple Wastes and their relationship to the purple worms. Dad is talking about how  _ he fought a purple worm once, you know _ which of course he’s heard that story plenty of times, and somehow the worm — whose size he knows because he  _ saw the bubble come down _ — it gets bigger every time.

Then he’s gazing at the Dragonsword Mountains, so beautiful, so remote. It’s a nice painting, not a very accurate one, he thinks, now that he’s seen them, if only from Hurn.

He stops and he frowns, looking at the painting again, not really listening to Magnus and Kravitz behind him. Something. There’s something. He tilts his head to one side.

“Angus?” says Kravitz. “Are you with us?” Kravitz’s glance goes to Magnus, and Angus knows now that Kravitz knows; of course Taako told him.

“Yeah of course, just a —” Just a feeling, he thinks. But it’s fine. It’s Taako and Mom and Merle, and they’ve got Carey too, and it’ll be fine.

He’s shaken from his thoughts as Magnus claps a big hand on his shoulder. “C’mon kiddo, how long can you look at some old mountains? Let’s get up to the exhibit with the wolves and stuff, that one’s cool.” 

“Yeah, cool, cool,” Angus echoes faintly, looking at Kravitz, then the painting one last time. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the great things about writing with someone else is when you’re writing two characters in the same scene and one person misinterprets the other person’s intention: you can get some really great comedy. Which is to say that hops was goofing when Taako offered that spider treat, and when epersonae wrote Carey’s response she took it seriously.
> 
> The homefries vs hashbrowns debate is real (and is one of many passionate debates conducted via chat between your authors) although the most important fact is that for home fries that aren’t underdone in the middle and burnt on the outside, epersonae recommends microwaving your cut potatoes in a little olive oil until they’re almost cooked, draining, then finishing on a hot cast iron pan. [the more you know.gif]
> 
> Finally, please enjoy [this fine piece of fanart](http://polyblaster.tumblr.com/post/179404739758), of sorts, that hops created for this chapter.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan goes badly.

The four of them are fully hidden under cover of darkness when they stop to plan their final approach. Lucretia examines the map again, then looks down the slope at the compound. Her color vision is still gone, as always, but the Darkvision spell that allows her to see through the gloom changes it entirely to grayscale.

“You’re right, that is remarkably straightforward,” she says. A single guard leans against a pike.

“Good, in and out, easy peasy,” Merle says with a shrug. He can see the compound too, thanks to the same spell. “Guy seems like a dumbass.”

Carey hums thoughtfully. “Still think it’d help to have a lookout.” She can see it on their faces, in their posture: they’re all eager as hell to have this thing done with. Not that she isn’t, but she didn’t get where she is by ignoring the basics. Watch your adversaries. Make an extraction plan. Don’t get too wrapped up in your feelings about the job. “Be happy to keep an eye out up here.”

Taako opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again and says, “You sure that’s the best idea?”

“How you mean?” she says, a bit defensively.

“No, like— you’re— you’re like, the competent one, of all of us…” He ignores Merle’s protest of _hey!,_ along with Lucretia’s raised eyebrow, and looks down at the compound, at the single guard who even from a distance looks like he could fall over into a heap for a nap. “Like, in the, y’know, _assassin_ way? Like, that’s your job? So maybe you shouldn’t be the one to…” His stomach flips anxiously as one of the large doors opens and closes, but nobody else appears outside.

Carey laughs. “Fair enough, bud; like we were talking about earlier, I am pretty good at my job. But naw, you all, this is your quest, yeah? I can be backup this time around.” She glances at Lucretia, who simply offers a faint nod.

Taako takes a breath and nods. “Yeah. Alright, yeah. We got it. But like, in case we don’t? Meet back here?”

“Yup. I’ll be up here and we’ll, yeah, we’ll meet up back here either way.”

Lucretia looks at Carey, down at the gate in the wall around the compound, and back at all three of them. _Either way,_ she thinks. They’ll do this, they’ll kill this man for Magnus, and then: back here, and back home.

Taako stares down the path that winds through the scraggly pines and rough outcroppings of rock, calling back over his shoulder to the others, “Well, keep an eye out, Flips. Let’s do it.” He clenches his fists, releases them, and walks forward. Lucretia shifts her pack self-consciously and follows, Merle trailing behind them both.

As they approach the gate, Lucretia asks, “Sleep?”

Taako has already cast the spell before the word leaves her mouth. The guard slumps forward, holding his pike, then falls to the ground with a quiet thud. They wait for a painfully long moment to see if anyone comes running, but when the still silence of the night resumes, Merle touches his index finger to his thumb in the _“okay”_ symbol.  

 _“Nice,”_ he says, a bit too loud. Taako and Lucretia turn to him in unison, both of them essentially screaming with their eyes. Lucretia clears her throat as she checks the gate: unlocked.

“Huh.” She pushes it open. Still quiet.

Taako hesitates for a moment, but sees that the way between the outbuildings to the fortress is completely clear, just as he’d observed with Carey. He looks at Lucretia for a long moment, lets out the breath he’d been holding, and slips through the open space in the gate, not daring to push it open any further.

Lucretia holds the door for Merle to come through, then closes it behind them. Before it closes entirely, she looks back into the darkness, towards where she knows Carey is hiding. She glances again at the nearly-memorized map, then points to a small door that opens into a kitchen storeroom.

Lucretia tries the handle: it’s locked. Without even looking at the other two, she takes a roll of thieves’ tools out of her vest pocket. Carey had given them to her: “borrowed” from Magnus on the assumption that he won’t notice in the few days they’re gone. _Used to be mine anyway,_ she’d said with a wink.

She crouches down in front of the door, concentrating on the sound of the tumblers. She isn’t exactly an expert at this, and for a second she regrets letting Carey stay behind. But then a click, and the door pops open. On the other side, boxes and barrels, and at the far end, a portcullis with a kitchen beyond. So far, so good. She tucks the tools back into her pocket.

Taako raises a brow, looking from her eyes to the pocket and back to her eyes again. She gives a little half-shrug and a smile, as if to say that certainly, she too can pick up a few extra skills over all these years. Then she waves for him to enter the storeroom and they walk together carefully towards the open portcullis and into the kitchen.

As they pass through, the portcullis falls with a clang, and Merle is on the far side of it, and Taako and Lucretia are trapped inside. Then they hear footsteps. Heavy footsteps. Lucretia just hopes that Merle can get away before anyone gets there. And then there’s half a dozen guards, humans and orcs, along with a half-ogre. Lucretia casts Shield in preparation to fight and Taako starts to fire Magic Missiles, but the spells fizzle to nothing. She grips her staff tighter, dropping her other hand to her side.

One of the men steps forward; he’s holding a small wand of gnarled wood. “Take their stuff, don’t let ‘em talk, separate ‘em.”

The guards surround them. One of them sneers at Taako.

“What happened, pretty boy?”

All at once, Taako’s aware that the pendant around his neck isn’t casting his glamour anymore. His eyes widen a little as his stomach lurches. Another guard laughs and grabs him by the arm, twisting it behind his back after removing his pack. He takes the pendant, slips the rings from Taako’s fingers, searches his pockets for wands and other items, cuffs his hands, then shoves him forward.

“Cat got your tongue, or what?” the guard says.

Taako looks over at Lucretia, terrified for one long moment, before he snaps at the guard, “Oh, glad we’re getting captured by _Fantasy People’s Sexiest Orc Alive_.” The orc just chuckles darkly and shoves him ahead, Lucretia out of his line of sight.

She stares at Taako, seeing the subtle change of his face, hardly noticing as they take her pack and her staff—at least it’s not _that_ staff. She doesn’t like wearing magic items, a habit from the Bureau days, or maybe a superstition from the Relic Wars. They tug on her bracer, until the leader shakes his head.

“That ain’t going anywhere, besides all it does is bring down one of those balls for smashing.”

They take the roll of thieves’ tools, Magnus’s thieves’ tools. They take her pendant of farspeech, and that hurts as bad as losing any more powerful magic item. Not just a lifeline gone, but one of the few mementos of Maureen. Then she’s cuffed and shoved towards Taako, and walked down the halls. None of it looks like the map. Not a single thing.

The guards shove Taako again as they walk. He strains against the cuffs for a moment before stalking forward. Suddenly, below the brim of his hat, a clever look in his eye. And then, his voice in Lucretia’s head: _“Hey, I forgot I had this stupid thing.”_

She jerks against the guards on either side of her, purely out of startlement. It’s only by chance that she thinks _“What?!”_ instead of saying aloud.

 _“Band of Projected Thought, from the moon’s own gashapon,”_ he thinks, trying not to waver. This is bad, but maybe there’s a way, if they can just… _“Only used it like, twice, so if we could make Leon’s sacrifice worth something, let’s do it now, huh?”_

They’re led through a heavy door into an actual dungeon, then each pushed into their own small rooms, and Lucretia stumbles forward to sit on a straw mattress on the floor. The doors are locked from the outside.

 _“Merle...we...I think we’re stuck for now, Taako.”_ She pauses, her pulse racing. She’s trying not to babble, but the anxiety in her thoughts is leaking out. _“What if…. Nothing on the map…. He meant to….”_ Taako is silent on the other end, while Lucretia’s thoughts race ahead of her ability to communicate through the band. _This was a mistake—I shouldn’t have—trap—we’re trapped—it was all a lie—he meant to trap Magnus—oh god Magnus._ She can’t breathe.

Taako squeezes his eyes shut tight and cuts through her panicked thoughts. _“Stop! Stop, that’s not—that’s not going to change anything—”_ and for a moment, he can’t breathe either. He steels himself to the thought of Magnus trapped like this. The thought of Magnus at home, now, not knowing where they are or what’s happened to them. He swallows hard, forces a breath out of his lungs. _“Breathe, alright?”_

She curls up into herself, but she counts her breaths, tries to let those thoughts go. “ _It was a trap though, right? That much seems clear.”_ Breathe in. “ _Fuck.”_ Breathe out. “ _Better us than him, right?”_

Taako’s eyes well with tears and he’s glad that she can’t see him as he leans his head against the cool stone wall. He thinks of Angus. _“Yeah.”_

 _“Sorry about that. I had such high hopes for us doing this, and well, here we are.”_ She chuckles, nervous and ragged-edged, but almost back to herself. _“You don’t have, like, a spare wand in that hat, do you?”_

He thinks of Lup, and he feels sick. _“Wish I did,”_ he manages to answer. He’s searching for a way out, but there’s nothing, there’s no way out of this—how didn’t they see? _“Why did we think this would—why didn’t we—”_ Lup doesn’t even know he’s gone. And now what? _“We—”_

 _“We’ll get through this.”_ Though she doesn’t entirely feel that way, she can project it. She reminds herself: that’s how she lived a decade on her own. _“We’ll figure something out, right? Besides, Carey’s out there.”_ She takes another steadying breath. _“Merle will find Carey, and they’ll figure something out.”_

Taako puts his head down on his knees and closes his eyes, trying to focus on her words in the front of his mind. It’s too hard to think straight, so he tries not to think at all.

* * *

Carey squints down at the gate, fiddling with a knob on her darkvision goggles to get a better view. This was her idea, to do this with the three of them as a team and her on watch. Doesn’t mean she’s not still worried.

Doesn’t mean she’s happy when her fears appear to be vindicated: the gate that was closed opens up, and Merle runs out of it, and there’s three, no wait, four guards in hot pursuit. She takes out the sweet new crossbow Killian gave her last Candlenights, sized perfectly to fit on her pack, with the custom engraving “ _You make me quiver_ ” followed by three hearts on the side, and she draws down on the one closest, closing one eye. But the shot goes wide, and she curses under her breath.

She loads a second bolt, taking a second to steady her breathing. _You got this,_ she thinks _. You’ve got their back._ And the second shot finds its target, a solid hit to the chest. A third one bounces off of the guard’s armor, a fourth shot strikes true, and then she pauses to make sure that she’s not spotted. Luckily they all seem to be attending to their injured fellow, giving Merle a chance to get away.

Down below, Merle’s running as fast as his legs will take him. “Ah, shit, ah, fuckin’ shit—” he pants, somewhere between frustration and full-blown panic. It’s dark as shit and whatever the hell had happened back there had immediately dispelled the darkvision spell. He takes a quick turn and disappears into the trees, stumbling some, still hopefully heading in Carey’s direction. When he emerges on a closer path, he pushes forward, hoping the moonlight will be enough to find her. “Aw, hell.”

From her perch, Carey sees Merle stumbling in the dark and curses under her breath. It might actually be worse than it looks. She drops down perfectly silently and slips through the underbrush until she’s right next to him.

“Hey, over here!” she whispers. “What the fuck?”

Merle nearly leaps out of his skin. “ _Shit_!” And when he realizes it’s just Carey, “You can’t just—ah, fuck, they—the—this whole thing was a damn setup, they slammed the door and locked me out and I’m assuming they took Taako and Lucretia, I mean—aw, shit.”

She takes a deep breath, closing her eyes to focus.

“Okay, okay. Yeah, this is just great. I guess we gotta—no darkvision, right? So I think we’re stuck until morning.” She pauses to think, her tongue just barely sticking out. “Unless—”

 _“Unless....”_ echoes Merle.

“I might be able to get in there. The map’s bogus, right? But I could do some scouting around, see if I can get ‘em out.” She peers down the path towards the stronghold. None of these ideas seem good, really.

“And if you get captured, then what? I wait around out here with my thumb up my ass ‘til they carry you out? Shit.”

“Well fuck,” she says. She takes out her stone of farspeech, but its surface is still dark this deep in the mountains. “I guess we’re not calling in the cavalry, either.” She gives Merle a hard look. “It’s just you and me, bud, pulling their asses out of the fire.”

Merle huffs, rubbing his good hand over his face. “Great. Yeah. Dream team right here. Regular Murtaugh and Riggs.”

Carey squints. “Fuckin’... who?”

“Fantasy Lethal Weapon? No? Come on, you’re not _that_ young, are you?”

She shakes her head and turns away from the stronghold and starts down the path with a sigh. “C’mon, we might as well find a place out of the way until morning.”

Merle follows after her. “I’m gettin’ too old for this shit.”

* * *

 

Lucretia sleeps, eventually, fitfully, despite the miserable mattress. Across the hall, though, Taako sits with his knees tucked to his chest, eyes wide and exhausted. He can’t tell if it’s been minutes or hours, just that it’s been too fucking long. The place is too quiet to have any hopeful outcome in store for them. With his ears perked anxiously, he waits for sounds of life on the other side of the door.

Lucretia’s conscious mind goes quiet, but eventually she begins to talk in her sleep, even in her mind. He tunes her out after the first few mumbles, since he can’t hear anything clearly, but he keeps the band on just in case.

She shifts uneasily on the mattress without waking. In the dream, it’s her old office, but it’s not her office; it’s her secret room. But it’s also Barry’s cave, not that she’s ever seen it. His handwriting is on the map pinned to the wall, but she can’t read what he’s written. Patches of static shift and move around her, and she follows them to a light in a corner.

“Oh, it’s just you,” she says. She puts a hand on the small glass tank. Then she’s not there at all. The icosahedron, but taller, too tall; she’s so high up that she can’t see them, until she does. Magnus is tearing the arms off of a training robot, and she smiles. Except it’s not a training robot, it’s Noelle. And it’s not Noelle in her robot body, but a little halfling woman with red hair, and it’s Lucas who is pulling off her arms. A dark figure with a scythe separates Lucas and Noelle, and she can’t tell if it’s Lup or Barry or Kravitz, but red eyes look out of a gleaming skull, boring into her.

Then Noelle and Lucas and the reaper are all gone, and it’s just the boys: Merle reading something out of his Extreme Teen Bible while Magnus is throwing Taako into a flip. They look happy. They don’t know who she is and they’re happy.

But they look at her, and Magnus says “Junior” and Taako says “Junior” and Merle says “Junior” and they all have reaper eyes.

And she’s in her secret room and every surface is covered with maps and all the maps have drawings of the Relics on them, her drawings. She’s drawing the Relics over and over again. “If I draw them enough they’ll go away, isn’t that right Junior?” And she looks over at the tank, waiting for the trill of response that filled all those nights alone, but the tank is empty. She goes to the tank and she calls out all the dumb little pet names she used because she was afraid what it would mean to give it a real name _junior baby tiny kiddo fishie_ and she pounds on the tank with both fists and it breaks and the water rises and it’s still not there no one is there she couldn’t stop it everything’s gone wrong the plan what happened to the plan—

Taako feels her nightmare before he hears her stream of thoughts that seep through to his mind. _“Luce?”_ he tries quietly. The only response is her continued and rising panic, then she shouts. (She’s not sure if it’s in the dream or if she’s awake. Everything is dark.) _“Hey, Luce.”_

Her breathing is shallow and ragged, but she knows where she is now. She knows _when_ she is. _“Oh god,”_ she says. _“Did I wake you?”_

In his mind, he laughs a little. _“No. Nope. That woulda meant I was sleeping.”_ He pauses, noting the nervous, terrified energy that’s flowing from her mind to his. _“Take a breath, alright? It was just a bullshit dream.”_

She takes a few slow breaths, trying to let the panic and terror subside. _Just that fucking dream again._ Then a long sigh. _“You didn’t….”_ A wave of feeling that might be shame comes over her as she thinks of him seeing all that: the look of unaware happiness on his face as he trained with Magnus; the attachment she had to the baby voidfish. She takes another breath. _“Yeah, just a dream.”_

 _“No, I didn’t. So if everyone was in their underwear, you’re good. But…”_ He steadies his own shaking hand in front of him as she laughs uneasily. _“Felt it. Weird brain shit. I’m up, so you’re good, just… go back to sleep.”_

 _“It’s foolish, but.... Sometimes I miss, um, the baby voidish? I should never have, but it was— I used to talk to it, you know? Like I used to do with Fisher, before. And now, I dunno. Cat’s not really the same.”_ She can still feel the cool smooth surface of the tank from her dream.

He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. He thinks about her secret office, the voidfish as small as Fisher had been when they first found him, the petrified look on her face on the Day. The look on her face that must mirror it now.

 _“Anyway. Not that you wanted to know that. I’ll try to get back to sleep, I suppose.”_ She shifts on the thin mattress on the cell floor until she finds a slightly less painful position. For a few moments, she’s deliberate in her breathing, consciously letting the memory of the dream float away from her, until her body takes over almost despite herself, and she’s asleep again, this time silent and dreamless.

Alone again in the silence, he replays her thoughts in his mind. He’d always known she had trouble sleeping, and even that she had nightmares, but he’d never known how they’d felt. If his bad dreams kept him up, he’s unsure how Lucretia ever slept.

He’s too afraid to take the band off, but he’s nervous about leaving it on. It seems like the longer they’re connected, the more her thoughts run into his own. He doesn’t know how to feel about it. But, he considers, this is probably the least of their problems.

The thoughts of their capture, their circumstances, and their inevitable downfall bubble up all at once and he’s thankful she’s asleep and can’t hear. It seems there might be no clever escape out of this one. He wonders what time it is, then promptly reminds himself that it doesn’t really matter. It hasn’t even been one night yet and he’s claustrophobic, paranoid, terrified. Is this what Lup felt like, trapped in the Umbrastaff?

He closes his eyes. He knows he won’t sleep, but he meditates anyway and thinks of home.

* * *

After getting the fire going, Carey sits down on a stump near Merle.

“So, Wonderland, huh?”

Merle snorts. “Goin’ right for it? Hit me, kid.”

“That's how you lost your darkvision, yeah? ‘Long with the actual eye?” She gestures at the patch. “Boss lost some years. Magnus lost his whole…uh, everything, until that thing at the Fantasy Costco. Except this, I guess. Never really thought about stuff you can't see. Always seemed like you and the boss had the roughest go of it.” She wants to ask what Taako lost; he's never seemed any different as far as she can tell. It's probably none of her business, though.

Merle shrugs. “I guess. I mean, wasn’t any fun, but at least it didn’t hurt. If anything, it’s just a pain in the ass while I’m out trying to teach the kids how to adventure and all that.” He pauses for a moment. “And right now, yeah. Pain in the ass right now.”

“Mags don't talk about it too much. And the boss, well, yeah. Weird to think they're the same age, if I'm being honest. I always knew her after, you know?”

“You’re tellin’ me.” He sighs, shakes his head. “I mean, last time I’d seen her she was… well, young. Her and Magnus both, they were too young to be there. Now it’s kind of a trip.” He chuckles. “Back on the moon, there I was thinking we had our age in common among the young crowd, but nope.”

Carey, despite their solemn circumstances, can’t help but cackle. “Hey bud how awkward was that, anyway? I mean, I was wicked embarrassed on your behalf beforehand, but wow. All them googoo eyes at the boss….” She shakes her head. “Not that like, you know, half the Bureau didn’t feel the same way or nothin’.”

Merle shrugs. “For all their damn googoo eyes at each other I put up with all those years,” he waves vaguely, “for a whole century _,_ I think they can excuse that one.” He looks at her, a clever gleam in his eye. He laughs to himself before asking, “Were you or your gal part of that half, then?”  

“Listen, bud. Conversations that I may or may not have had with my _very faithful wife_ about, well, things…. That ain’t none of your business. Y’all may have been on the _love boat_ or whatevs, but we were _professionals_ there at the BoB.” She does blush, very slightly, blue scales tinted purple. “Turns out we were all wrong about what was what, though. I mean Mags and the _boss?_ Damn.”

“Wasn’t always the boss, that one. But I’m not surprised she wound up where she did. Magnus… he was followin’ her around a long time before she’d even found her legs, so to speak. They were good kids. Still are, in my book, anyway.”

“‘Kids’,” she scoffs. “I can’t even. What was that like, though? I mean, I got it like—” She taps the side of her head. “Like everybody, but it’s kinda _her_ perspective in a lotta ways. And me and Maggie, we talked a bit….” She shrugs. “Sometimes I can see what they were like, but.... You know, she’s how she is, and Mags, what happened in Raven’s Roost, you know…” _That_ part they’ve only talked about once, but it’s stuck with her, and it’s why she’s here.

“Yeah. Definitely changed him.” What can he say? “It’s not right. And this douchebag’s gonna rot for it, even if it’s not… going as planned.”

“Boy _there’s_ an understatement. This guy hates Magnus, like, _a lot,_ huh? To set some kinda crazy-ass trap like this?”

Merle shakes his head. “I knew the dude had to be crazy with all… y’know, what he did. But this is… I can’t even imagine what Magnus did to piss him off _this_ much. He’s done plenty of shit over the years, but to warrant this?”

“I mean, Mags and them let him live, yeah? And then—” She throws up her hands like an explosion. “And now…. You been to the Roost lately? It looks _good.”_

“It’s been a little bit since I’ve been, but I bet it’s even better than the last time I made it up there. And it’s thanks to him, yeah? So…” Merle sighs, still not understanding.

“A fella might hold a grudge, maybe, seeing all that ruin get reversed. And it’s not like Kalen’s exactly done too great for himself, compared to _hero of Faerun_ and all that.”

“What a dumbass reason to hate someone. Like, we saved your ass. You’re welcome, buddy!” He sighs. “But I guess it makes sense. I just hope…”

He looks in the direction of the fortress, though he can’t see a damn thing in the dark through the trees. They’re further away than he wants them to be. But he knows that they have to wait until morning to move, and they’re better off alive and waiting than rushing in and dead. He just hopes that Lucretia and Taako are also alive and waiting when they get in there, somehow.

Carey follows his gaze. She's used to waiting for the right moment, but right now she's antsy as hell. Fact is, if everything were going right, there should’ve been an explosion of magic by now, Taako riding up on Garyl or some nonsense, boss with that look of quiet satisfaction. But they're not. Which means everything is more fucked than usual. Which means waiting.

“We'll get ‘em,” she says, as much to reassure herself as to Merle. “Or hell, maybe we'll get in there and they'll be drinking tea and arguing over his corpse.” She pokes at the campfire with a stick. “Or weirder yet, _not_ arguing.”

“Yeah.” So many things come to mind at once that he can’t possibly sort them all out. He looks at her as she pokes the fire, trying to find words. His hesitation feels foreign. “I just… if worse comes to worst, though… If both of ‘em… y’know…”

“Nope, not even going there. You should know better than that, bud. Tomorrow we get up at sunrise and scout another entrance. And then I guess….” She drums her claws on the log. “A distraction?” She looks sidelong at him with a sly grin. “Like bugs or something….”

“Disguises? Bugs _and_ disguises?”

“Probably not— I mean— Sure, what the hell? Maybe not at the same time though, yeah?”

Merle scoffs. “You’re no fun.”

Carey laughs; Merle is, well, Merle’s a lot. But she appreciates how easily he bounces back. She’s starting to think maybe they can make this work. “Sez you. But maybe we go a little less fun, a little more business? I got a couple of ideas, you tell me if you think you can keep up.”

As the fire burns down to coals, they talk through an approach to getting the others out, and hopefully taking out Kalen at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inscription on the side of Carey’s crossbow courtesy the lovely and delightful Chiara (hops's girlfriend, natch)
> 
> We are both fully aware that wizard magic in D&D doesn’t actually require the use of a wand or other focus. But Justin and Griffin have established some elements that are honestly interesting to play with. (Although maybe stolen from Harry Potter? Who’s to say.) So we’re playing with it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An uncomfortable breakfast. Two old friends try to work together despite themselves. And the scent of a third option.

Taako slumps against the thick wooden door, then turns his ear to the surface, eyes closed. A few moments of silence, save for the shaking breaths he tries to steady. Then, distant footsteps in a stone hallway. His heart leaps into his throat. Eyes open. He wants to blurt  _ did you hear that?  _ but he holds the thought. No need to interrupt sleep for some paranoia. But his toe taps beneath him and it just barely bounces his arm and head along with it, and he’s all nervous energy with nowhere to go. And then, when two more pairs of footsteps come closer, his heart hammers. Then, voices, and then, panicking, “ _ Hey! Did you hear that?”  _

She’s jolted awake by his voice in her head, and the note of anxiety has her sitting up instantly. She strains to hear through stone and wood.  _ “Maybe? Sorry, my ears aren’t exactly—” _ But then she hears it, and immediately that’s followed by the sound of a key turning in a rusty lock. She stands to prepare herself, face whatever’s coming on her feet.

_ “What’s happening?”  _ Taako asks, practically scrambling onto his knees to lean closer to the door, trying to somehow hear what he can’t see.

_ “I think they’re coming to take us out of here,”  _ and as she says it, the door opens, and opposite her another guard is at Taako’s door.

_ “Fuck!”  _ In his mind, Taako sounds different. No facade, just… afraid. 

“Good morning,” she says aloud in her most poised Madame Director voice. The guard just laughs, rolls his eyes at the other one opening the door to get Taako. 

“Boss says if you talk we got orders to gag ya, so don’t try nothing,” he says.

Taako takes a deep breath in and lets it out slowly. As he gets up onto his feet, he steels himself, and reminds himself who the fuck he is. His legs slow their trembling. Against his impulse, he says nothing in retort to the guard’s threat. 

Their wrists are bound again, and they’re walked through more hallways until they reach a larger room, with the first windows they’ve seen: high up on the walls, so all they can see are peaks of mountains. At the table, three chairs: two empty, and a human man occupying the one between. A hulking man who must’ve been an impressive fighter, back in his day. Now he looks...old. Sour.

He nods at the guards, who untie their wrists and push them both towards the table. Then he takes a long drink out of a steaming mug and looks them over.

“Huh,” he says. “You look even shittier than I figured.” He looks at the guards again. “You sure you got the right folks? She’s old and he’s….” He shakes his head. “Doesn’t even look like them.” 

Taako stares forward, unblinking. He sets his jaw and breathes deeply. So much roars through his head at once, so much that he barely has a moment to dwell on Kalen’s words before he’s remembering Magnus and his nightmares. His stories about Julia.  _ Don’t talk to him. Don’t let him talk to you.  _ But Kalen is talking, and he feels like he could scream with the sudden rush of outrage that fills him. 

“Cat got your tongues? Well fine then, have a sit-down and I’ll do the talking.”

Lucretia tries to speak to Taako through the band but gets only silence. When she looks at him, his face is a stony mask, but she can see the terror and fury at war beneath.

Kalen continues, “There’s food, if you’re hungry.”

Lucretia glances at the plates of eggs, sausage, toast, then at Taako again. She sits, but pushes the plate away.

Taako remains standing. “Hard pass on the poison, I’m good.” 

“What, you don’t like being on the receiving end?” 

The jab hits Taako sideways and he falters a little, stammering before closing his mouth. 

Lucretia fixes Kalen with a stare. “I’m sure you’re aware that Sazed was imprisoned for his crimes. There’s no need to be rude. You already have us….” She waves a hand. “Like this.”

Kalen laughs, his eyes still on Taako. “I like that. She defends you. Would’ve been nice if she’d bailed you out when it happened, huh?” He takes a forkful of eggs. “Why don’t you have a seat, Taako? You don’t look well.” 

Taako swallows and remains standing, but folds his arms on the back of the offered chair. “I’m cool,” he says, even though his mind is full of thoughts of all the wrong things. Lucretia, in the crowd at Sizzle It Up. Lucretia, on her dais. Lucretia, exhausted, sinking into the water of the pocket spa. And Magnus, and how this… this could have been Magnus. It all gets tangled in his head and it almost stings like static. 

Lucretia looks at Taako, and then back at Kalen, her jaw set, and though she’s tired and sore and her clothes are rumpled and dirty, she wears the fake smile she uses for particularly obnoxious diplomats. “You haven’t killed us so far,” she says lightly, “so why don’t you tell us why we’re still here.” The longer he talks, she thinks, the more likely Carey will figure something out.

“Right to the point. Excellent. You like this with what’s-his-name over in Neverwinter? It’s very, uh,  _ dignified _ . Mature. I guess that’s why they take you seriously, right?” Another bite of food, another calculating look at Taako and Lucretia. “I honestly did not figure that dumb bastard Burnsides would send his...lovers? Are you all still…?” He waves his fork. “Wait, I don’t want to know. But I figure he’s got to be out there, and as long as I got you all, that stubborn fuck is gonna come knocking on my door eventually.”

Lucretia tries to hold herself perfectly still, folding her hands together under the table. Kalen thinks Magnus is with them. She’s not sure yet if this is worse or better, but maybe they can buy a little extra time. 

“Lord Sterling is a sincere and generous sovereign who I’m proud to have worked with,” she says cooly. “You, on the other hand….” Her jaw pulses slightly. 

Kalen chuckles, chews on a sausage, then sighs. “Now, let’s not be presumptuous, I’m sincere and generous, aren’t I? I offered you  _ breakfast _ after you killed one of my own  _ and  _ tried to break into my fortress. Didn’t even leave you restrained last night. What more could you ask for?” 

“A real map,” Taako mumbles. One of the guards beside him snorts. 

Kalen points at him with his fork. “I almost can’t believe you all fell for that one. I mean, really? Random ogre just drops a map that gives you my exact location and how to get to me?” 

“For the record, I  _ did _ point that out, but what Lucretia wants, Lucretia gets. Track record with plans, not so hot.” 

She scoffs. “I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what I said,  _ Taako. _ ” Kalen looks from her to Taako with amusement in his eyes. “Besides, you go into a situation with the assets you have at hand, even if there’s a chance some of them are wrong. I think we all—” She stops abruptly, wincing, as she realizes that she was about to give away who else was with them. 

“No, go ahead,” says Kalen, leaning forward ever so slightly. “We all….” 

Taako finally takes a seat, arms folded. Lucretia glances sideways at him, but he stares ahead at Kalen. With his arms folded in front of him, he taps one slender finger on his elbow impatiently. Their old signal for  _ just go with it. _ She finds herself holding her breath, even as she drums her fingers on the table, the specific rhythm that meant  _ I’m with you.  _ “We all got massively fucked. Don’t really have breaking news for you, beefcake.” And again, beside him, the guard chuckles. 

Kalen throws the guard a poisonous look, which remains when he locks eyes with Taako once again. “She’s got a habit of that, huh? She fucked you over, she fucked me over; maybe you’re on the wrong side of the table, Taako.”

Lucretia grits her teeth. She can put up with this. She looks into the middle distance, waiting, letting Taako take the lead.

“Yeah, well, even if I am, it’s a little too late now, eh?” Taako kicks back in the seat. “Seems like you’re fixing to fuck me over next, so you might as well just get in line.” 

Kalen mirrors the gesture, leaning back as he chews slowly. “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Savior of the world or no, you don’t exactly strike me as the meddling type, Taako. Not like some….” And he glances at Lucretia, her face in the carefully schooled expression of Madame Director. “It seems as though you have a habit of getting dragged into this sort of thing,” he says mildly.

“Well, you’re not wrong about that.” Taako rolls his eyes, throws a look at Lucretia, and hopes that she’ll get what he’s doing without him inside her thoughts. “This  _ was  _ your big idea after all. Thanks for that, by the way.” 

Lucretia’s mouth tightens almost imperceptibly.

Kalen chuckles. “Well,  _ Lucy  _ and her big ideas, huh? Always working out well for you, and your sister, too. You sure you wanna follow her down to the end here?”

Taako’s throat tightens and any quips he’d planned to fire back all fall flat in his closed mouth. There are so many things he could say: Kalen’s wrong, he’s  _ right,  _ and Taako’s sure, and he’s not sure at all. So he leaves the door open. 

“I’m not sure about anything yet, my man.” 

Kalen smiles, and Lucretia digs her nails into her palms, and she wants to let Taako plant this seed; she can almost see what he’s trying to do here. And at the same time, there’s a white-hot fury in her at this petty tyrant.

“I’m so sorry you don’t appreciate being saved from the Hunger,” she says sharply. 

“Well, seems like that relic plan was working out pretty good all things considered. And if you’d left the relics alone, left all our minds alone….” He looks oddly wistful, nostalgic even. “Was doing just fine, myself, before you had to go meddling in everybody’s brains. Almost had that, that whatsit, the....” He looks at Taako. “That little bit your sis made, I thought I was that close. And then boom, do I remember that? Not a bit.” 

“Hard pass on having  _ that  _ in common, amigo. No matter what we have on the fucked-over front, I wasn’t trying to incinerate a whole town, so maybe slow your roll on that one,” Taako retorts. 

“No, your sister’s fine piece of work did that all on its own.” Kalen says. “She had the right idea, though. If she had a backbone, she coulda done some  _ real _ damage with that thing.”

“Yeah, takes a real strong spine to firebomb a town in a temper tantrum,” Taako spits. “Spare me, and don’t even try to compare Lup to—” 

“No, no, you’re right. I’m sorry, I just got carried away…” Kalen pauses for a moment, looking sincerely (as sincerely as Kalen  _ can _ ) at Taako. “You know what those things do to your brain, yeah? I just think it was a shame to let a thing like that go to waste.” 

Taako looks at Lucretia, his expression unreadable save for a twinge of distress somewhere in his eyes. She wishes, again, that she could hear his thoughts. She just has to trust that they’re working together, even though she feels slightly at sea.

“That’s why she locked it in a vault,” says Lucretia acidly. “To keep it from people like you.” She takes a deep breath, thinking of the years she spent wandering Faerun, following every trace of the Relics, and before that, the months Taako and Barry had spent looking for Lup. “We’ve seen what those places look like. There was no winning anything there. We know that better than anyone.” 

Kalen sneers. “Oh, yes, all  _ your  _ suffering and strife. How could I forget?” 

“You’ll be forgotten,” she says, “and there won’t be any magic to it.” She almost wants to throw it in his face, that Magnus has already forgotten him, but knows it would be a mistake. 

Kalen waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. The  _ journal-keeper’s  _ got words,” he mocks. “If you weren’t so concerned with  _ memory,  _ maybe you could have done something other than write in your diary or squander a decade of your pals’ lives.” He waves his fork dismissively. “Either one.” 

“Perhaps it wasn’t squandering,” she says softly, thoughtfully, almost to herself. “Perhaps...if it meant Magnus was there, to do….” She sighs. “To deal with someone like you, if more generously than you could have possibly deserved.” She considers, not for the first time, the look of joy on Magnus’s face at his wedding. She doesn’t dare speak Julia’s name aloud. Not yet.

Taako pipes up, folding his arms. “Whatever happened to  _ me  _ aside, Magnus had a pretty fucking kickass life before you—” 

“Before  _ he  _ came into  _ my  _ town and took—“ Kalen, for the first time, actually looks  _ angry _ . 

“No, actually, have you even met the dude? Came into your town and  _ what?  _ Built chairs and tables? Pet all the dogs? Drank your cider?” Taako scoffs. Lucretia can’t help but laugh. “You can be pissed at her,” and he motions to Lucretia, “all you want. But I can’t even wrap my head around what you want with Magnus.” 

“It doesn’t matter what I want with him. All I want from  _ you  _ is where he is, ‘cause I’m sure he’s here with you somewhere.” Kalen sets his fork and knife down and pushes the dish away from him. Within seconds, a servant is clearing it away. “And I’m sure if you don’t tell me, he’ll just come  _ rushing in  _ like always, right? Right into the fire, especially this time.” He takes out a roll of canvas, like an artist might use to store brushes, but this one has what appears to be an assortment of wands and rods. “Consider that this can be simple or...not so much,” he says, fingers brushing over the magical implements.

Then he gestures to the guards. “Take them back.” He pushes back his chair and stands, glowering down at Lucretia and Taako. “We’ll talk again soon enough.” 

The guards stand them up and start to lead them back through the hall, purposefully rough as they go. “Nice fucking job,” Taako mutters, just loud enough that Kalen will hear them. 

But as Lucretia raises an eyebrow and catches Taako’s eye, he simply nods, mildly satisfied, and looks ahead.  

Once they’re out of the room, Taako tests the connection again.  _ “You there?” _

_ “Well that was...interesting. Could have been worse.”  _

He’s relieved to hear her voice.  _ “Are you okay?”  _ he asks, rubbing a hand over his forehead, trying to focus through… well, all of that. 

She glances at the guards.  _ “I know it’s been….”  _ Her thoughts immediately jumble into a knot, just images: Phandalin and the Gauntlet, Magnus in Raven's Roost, a mannequin bathed in neon light with a chess piece in its wooden fingers.  _ “But I assume that was some sort of ploy?”  _

_ “Yeah I— yeah. I think…. If he thinks he can appeal to me, that gives us an opening, and I was  _ good  _ until he had to go and…” Lup.  _ The moment Lup crosses his mind again, it sends him reeling for a moment, her name in both their minds, and then silence.

_ “You doing okay?” _ They’re being walked in a way where she can’t see his face; she can’t connect at all except like this.

He exhales audibly.  _ “I’m fine.”  _ It’ll be fine. The guard behind him tightens his grip on his restraints and another pang of anxiety seizes his stomach and his head spins.  _ Lup’s out  _ there _ , and— and if things go south, if we all…  _

They’re almost to the cells. She just needs to—  _ “Letting him think he can split us. Well ‘keeping together is progress’, yes?”  _ One of his damn aphorisms, even if he mocks her for remembering it, she wants to keep him together, focused, at least until they’re out of sight of the guards.

The tears that had sprung to his eyes dissipate as he laughs, if only internally.  _ “Wow, pulling out an old classic in my time of need.”  _ And as the guards toss them back into their cells and untie them, he manages to hold together until the door shuts behind him. 

_ “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but they’re surprisingly helpful from time to time.”  _ She slides to the floor and rests against the stone wall.

_ “No shit.”  _ He settles in his cell, mirroring her body language without knowing.  _ “My shit was a smash hit that year. But when is it not, really,”  _ but even when he’s joking, his thoughts are shaky  and it’s pissing him off. Uncertainty creeps back over him as he starts to replay what just happened in his mind.   _ “I’m— this isn’t great. This is, uh…Was that stupid? Do you think that’ll even stick? I just can’t— I can’t think of anything else—”  _

_ “I don’t think it hurts.”  _ She considers the options for what they do next. There aren’t many.  _ “All we can do, I think, is stall until we see some opening. Thanks for the signal, at least.”  _

_ “Yeah.”  _ He exhales, tries to keep breathing, tries to remember to inhale and exhale deeply, evenly, like Lup had always reminded him to. And then she’s back,  _ Lup, Lup, Lup,  _ and he closes his eyes and shuts it all out.  _ “I won’t— I’m not gonna leave you hanging.” _

She lets out a long breath.  _ “I appreciate that.” _ The way Lup’s name echoes in his head...she shakes her own head.  _ “Lup—”  _ And she stops, suppresses that thought and her questions as hard and fast as she can. Not now.  _ “Consider me unsurprised that he’s the sort of fool who would have gone after a Relic.” _

_ “Hah. Fits the bill, though, right? At least he forgot before he had a Roost reprisal…” _

The image of Raven's Roost not merely as toppled columns and burning buildings, but another of those circles of glass: her heart drops into her stomach.  _ “He thinks Magnus is here. With us.”  _ She stands and starts pacing.  _ “Whatever happens, he can’t know where Magnus really is.” _

He takes a trembling breath in, his eyes still closed.  _ “Yeah. Yeah. That’s the nightmare fucking scenario.”  _ He thinks about Magnus at home, with Kravitz. With Angus. 

She stops pacing, puts a hand on the wall to ground herself. As the adrenaline fades and her facade drops, it hits her again.  _ Magnus.  _ She replays the conversation in her mind. But  _ Magnus. If it wasn’t for— He would have died— He almost died— “We can’t leave here without taking out Kalen.”  _ Her hand on the stone wall clenches into a fist. 

Taako tucks his knees into his chest and puts his head down.  _ “I don’t know how we’re supposed to— how are we even gonna get out of here? What if Carey and Merle— what if we all—?”  _ He can’t finish any of the thoughts because he’s afraid to even give voice to those fears. But they’re here, all of them, and it might already be too late. 

Lucretia lets out a long breath through her nose.  _ “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. And Carey— Carey is a master thief, I’m pretty sure she’s an assassin professionally— they’ve got to be already— Merle wants this as bad as we do, remember? And we’ve got our wits, we’ve survived—”  _ When she closes her eyes, she can see the empty corridors of the Starblaster, the bulkhead cracked, and they were coming for her, but she just had to keep moving.  _ “We’ve both survived worse than this.”  _ His thoughts are silent now, though. She can hear him crying across the hall.

He tried not to fall apart, not now, but there’s so little for him to hold onto. She’s right, all of that is right, but it’s not enough to save them. Not this time. He can only think of Magnus, a widower losing two more lovers, and two more friends. And Angus, and Kravitz, and Lup, what would become of them? Of their family, still so new? 

Lucretia’s voice cuts through the maelstrom of panic.  _ “I’m scared too.” _

He lets out a sob that she can hear from her cell.  _ “We come all this fucking way, survive the end of the fucking world 100 times to die like  _ this.” He presses his face to his knees.  _ “Fucking bullshit. I just— I just— I—“  _ He can’t breathe.  _ “I can’t— Lup doesn’t know I’m here.”  _

_ “Oh. Oh no. Taako. I’m so sorry.”  _ And the thought that screams in her brain:  _ fuck no we’re not going to die here, not like this.  _ Then a breath, a heartbeat, Lup’s brilliant smile in her mind’s eye.  _ “But you can apologize to Lup later. We're not dead yet, and he doesn't  _ want  _ us dead yet. We learned that much.”  _ She needs him now, needs the way he thinks, the way he sees an entirely different angle.  _ “What else did we learn?”  _

He takes a deep breath that raises his shoulders, then raises his head and wipes his eyes.  _ “He thinks the calvary coming is just Mags. I guess… He’ll keep us alive until he figures out that’s not happening. But…”  _ He slows his thoughts down with great effort, combing through the scene in slow motion, trying to remember everything he can.  _ “He had that roll of wands… I couldn’t see if there was anything written on ‘em. but I bet there’s a Zone of Truth in there. And we did  _ so well  _ with that in the inn.”  _

_ “You kept us together, is what happened.”  _

He laughs to himself through the last of his tears.  _ “Yeah, well. Don’t count on me for round two. Ch’boy isn’t exactly the poster boy for wisdom saves.”  _

_ “You always manage to pull it off somehow, though.”  _ She admires that in him, she always has.

_ “Stop blowing smoke up my ass to make me feel better. You sound like Mags.”  _ He sniffs and wipes his nose on the back of his sleeve.  _ “I’m just playing all the cards I got and hoping one is a winner.”  _

She laughs.  _ “I'm not saying it to make you  _ feel better.  _ I want you to, of course, but that's beside the point. You see things I don't see, you find another way through. You always have. And if I sound like Magnus—”  _ She starts pacing again.  _ “You think so poorly of him? You think he's ‘blowing smoke up your ass’?”  _ She huffs, a tone that comes through in her thoughts. 

Taako rolls his eyes, though she can’t see.  _ “He says a lot of nice things that probably aren’t true. He means them, but— yeah, let’s nitpick  _ that  _ right now, that’ll get us out of here.”  _

_ “Well, it's not like either of us have any bright ideas, apparently, and we have nothing but time right now. Tell me, then, how a man who’s loved you for a hundred years is all wrong about you.”  _ It's not that she means to get derailed on this topic, but she's riled up and angry and nervous. 

_ “Yeah, a hundred years, not the bullshit after.”  _ The nerves buzzing inside him quickly catch onto her anger.  _ “You know exactly what I’m talking about. He didn’t see me when I— those years, on the road, on the run?”  _ He swallows down his thought to blame her, letting his words speak for themselves.  _ “He can ignore them. I can’t. Like any of that is your business anyway.” _

_ “None of us are the same as we were. He’s not— He doesn’t—”  _ It’s not as though she hasn’t been torn apart by those doubts.  _ He doesn’t think any less of us because of the things we’ve done.  _ She’d asked why he forgave her, after everything, and...he just did. 

He hears her, even though he’s not sure she meant for him to.  _ “I do,”  _ he says, his anger draining away as fast as it came. It’s quiet for a moment, the only sound a whistle of wind somewhere in a gap in the stone walls. 

In her heart, the echo of  _ yes, yes, of course, same,  _ but instead,  _ “In any case, you are who you are now. And that’s someone who found a third option, a way to stop the damn apocalypse, when— When I was stuck on my own way, and everyone else was convinced there was no option at all.”  _ The way he’d said it, so softly, so  _ gently,  _ on that day.  _ There’s a third option. _ Tears well up in her eyes as she leans her forehead against the wall. 

He’s trying to think his way through it, think their way out of it, but it’s all jumbled with her thoughts. He sees himself through her eyes, suggesting another way, the third way, and feeling the rising reserve of her hope coming with all her fear. It’s foreign, it’s  _ distracting,  _ even. How could she have so much faith in him? Still, he thinks, replaying their conversation with Kalen, thinking about Lup, seeing Magnus, Angus, the Hunger, Kravitz, the Gauntlet, Raven’s Roost,  _ Lup, _ too many thoughts all at the same time. He puts his head in his hands and tries to tell her to slow down, but he can’t even find his own voice. Wheels spinning, he unties the band and takes it off. 

A surge of wordless panic overwhelms Lucretia and she slumps against the wall. She wants to shout out loud for him, realizing that the effort of keeping this communication going is part of what was keeping her steady. She grits her teeth to keep from yelling. She feels the thud of her heartbeat in her hands and her throat.

There’s a moment of terror at the silence, not being able to hear her in his mind. But the rush of relief that follows instantly calms him. He lifts his head from his hands and relaxes, stretches, shakes off the last of his cycling thoughts. If this is what Lup did in the Umbrastaff for a decade, he can do it for a day or two. 

He gets up and paces the cell, wrangles his thoughts of her. He’s not going to fucking die here. She’ll never let him live it down in the Astral Plane. And besides, he thinks with a surge of hot adrenaline, he has too much dope shit left to do. 

Lucretia can be mad at him later. He has to think, now. He has to fucking relax, and her mind’s going too fast for even his right now. He takes a deep breath in, wonders what time it is. Wonders where the hell Carey and Merle are, fears the worst, but that’s not important right now. He just has to think. 

He sits back down and folds his legs beneath him. He can’t remember the last time he’s meditated outside of sleep. But how many mornings did he come downstairs to Lup cross-legged on the living room floor, zen’ed out of her dome? Always trying to get him to join her. 

He supposes now is a good a time as any.

He lets his eyes flutter shut and takes a deep breath in, then lets it out for just as long. And again, and again. As the cell around him fades from the front of his mind, it’s replaced with memories, ones that he doesn’t cower to think of. Below the tiered city of robots, offering them the option to save the crystal home of their souls. In Rockport, using a momentary stroke of idiot genius to use the port wand to send the train straight into Jenkins’ garden. In Wonderland, his soul soaring upwards and reaching out for Magnus—  _ Magnus.  _ He can see his face so clearly as it was then, transparent and terrified, flying backwards towards the Astral Plane. And Kravitz bursting from the turbulent, oily sea below, watching them leave. 

And they’d all survived. Gone on to… everything, after. 

He thinks of the Day, of course. Of Paloma’s final crystalline prophecy come true. Of how Lup and Lucretia had both been wrong, but only he had seen the way through, between them. And that life, that feast they made, the unheard joke he’d watched them laugh about in the prophecy’s fog, it came to be. And there’s so much more left to become. 

He takes another deep breath, all of it laid out before him there, piece by piece. He’s Taako,  _ from TV.  _ He’s not going to go out like this. 

He’s roused from his meditation by the distant sound of footsteps that grow closer as he reorients himself with his surroundings. A small slot at the foot of the door opens and a tray pushes through with some lunch that doesn’t look half-bad. Potatoes, seasoned with something that smells… familiar. 

He sees Joaquin, terrified and exhilarated on some faraway plane. Joaquin teaching  _ him  _ to make his own damn namesake. Potatoes in the pan, spices, a red string pulled taut, and an explosion that changed… everything. 

At the barred window of the door, a guard looks him over. 

“Eat up,” he says, his voice gruff and vaguely familiar. The guard from Kalen’s table this morning. The one he’d drawn a chuckle from, to the tyrant’s disgust. He stands quickly and takes a bite of the potatoes, and yes,  _ exactly,  _ fuck, that’s— 

Lucretia picks up her plate as well, scooping a bit with her fingers, as the guard chuckles again. It’s not as good as— of course— but she’s had this combination of spices. From Angus, sometimes, showing off things he’d learned to cook when he was visiting. And once, just once: the only time the three of them have had dinner together since she cast Magnus and Taako out into the world, just a few months ago, after their encounter in the pocket spa. This is the flavor of  _ Taako’s _ tacos.

From across the hall, Lucretia hears his voice again, relief rushing through her, washing away the fear and anger that’d left her heart pounding all this time. “Hey, kemosabe, you make this yourself?”  

Lucretia smiles. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The full version of the quote that Lucretia uses is “Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” from 19th century American theologian Edward Everett Hale. Also, big props to tazscripts for references for Magnus’s dialogue in Suffering Game.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup gets suspicious. Carey learns some new moves. Taako tries to make a new friend.

At her desk in the Eternal Stockade, Lup rapidly taps the stack of papers in front of her with the eraser of her pencil. She’s distracted today, thinking of home. It’s always a little nerve-wracking when Taako is away. Maybe it’s a little irrational, or maybe it’s really not, after…

He travels a lot, between the school and  _ everything else  _ Taako does in the name of his Lifestyle Brand™️, and it’s fine, but he usually calls, and he didn’t last night, and it’s just weird. She sighs aloud. Is she really so clingy that she can’t go  _ one day?  _ Yeah, probably. Justified, maybe. But Taako is the one who usually calls her. She wonders if he’s called Kravitz, and taps a little louder. 

She pulls her stone from her robes and enters Taako’s frequency. It goes to voicemail immediately. She pauses, checks that the stone is working, and tries again. Nothing. 

“What the fuck, ‘Ko?” she murmurs, setting the stone down and picking up a black quill to do her paperwork the way ol’ RQ prefers. She fills out a few lines of an incident report about a necromantic cult they’d shut down at a Fantasy Cheesecake Factory, but she keeps looking at the stone, hoping it will ring. 

She writes another sentence, then looks up. And again. She can’t focus. 

She grabs the stone and dials Ren’s frequency. Taako’s touring for the Cookbook; she’ll be with him. Or at least she can  _ firmly request  _ that he pick up his twin’s calls. 

The line rings twice, and Ren looks down at the stone on her desk. Not often she gets a call from Taako’s sister. She wonders— what’s he up to? He didn’t say anything, but when he didn’t turn up she figured he was just taking a little personal time. He does that, sometimes.

“Ren here. What’s up, Lup?”

Lup is relieved to hear Ren on the other end. “Hi, dear, sorry to bother you, is Taako nearby?”

“Uh, no? I’m afraid he’s gone off on a galavant or something. He’s not, I mean, he’s not picking up his stone? That doesn’t seem like him. You tried the boyfriend?” 

Lup’s stomach drops to her feet. “What? He’s— he’s touring for the cookbook, isn’t he? That’s what he…”

Ren sighs. “Well then, well, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s— I mean, if that were the case….” Ren’s never exactly been comfortable with getting into family business, and  _ family _ being something of a loose term with Taako. But even she knows it’s not normal for him to be keeping secrets from his sister. “I could look on his desk, maybe, see if he, I dunno...or I’d be happy to give Kravitz a ring, if’n you’re busy.” She grabs at any idea she can think of. “Y’all don’t have a birthday coming up or nothing? You know, something where he might want to be doing something on the QT?” 

“No, he said—“ She feels like someone punched her in the gut. She doesn’t know if she feels angry or desperately anxious. There’s no birthday, no special occasion, she knows _ ,  _ she  _ knows  _ something is wrong, or worse yet, he  _ lied  _ to her. “He said he would be with you. There’s nothing coming up, you haven’t talked to him at all?” 

Ren looks down at her calendar, tries to think when she saw him last. “He was gonna take— I guess a day or two ‘cause Magnus is in town, and Angus just got back?” She laughs, a little uneasily. “That’s right, I thought he was blowing me off, ‘cause there was a new teachers’ meeting yesterday, and he’s usually there, but I know he kinda hates those?” She’s rambling now, feeling Lup’s unease. “I think last time I saw him was, uh, day before last? Maybe end of last week? Your brother’s not exactly the most, you know, consistent at keeping up with his calendar.” 

This isn’t right. Something isn’t right. “Okay, thanks dear. I’ll give Kravitz a call. Um, sorry to be a bother,” she says in a rush, trying to mask the brewing storm of emotions rising in her chest. 

“Not at all, hon.” She pauses. “If, you know, if there’s anything, if he’s in a situation or whatever and there’s anything I can do, you let me know, okay? I’d hate to see Taako get himself into any trouble.” Ren looks down at her calendar again. They’re supposed to be looking at new student applications in a couple of days. Whatever he’s got going on, she can’t imagine he’d miss that. 

“I’ll make sure he gets in touch when I’m done telling him off.” Lup’s tense smile comes through in her voice. “Thanks again.” And she disconnects the call, puts the stone down, and takes a deep breath. She’ll get a little work done, calm down, and call Kravitz. She’s sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for the confusion. And if there isn’t, she’ll kick his ass. 

* * *

It’s not that Carey’s good at mornings, exactly, but her body does respond to the sun, and she’s antsy to get this show on the road. And honestly, she’s got a morning routine that works well for her, even if it’s better with Kils beside her. She takes out her stone of farspeech again, mostly on instinct, sighs when it’s still unresponsive, and tucks it back into her bag.

She tastes the air: pine, mostly, but also hints of bergamot blooms, trail dust, and not just their campfire, but also the fires of Kalen’s stronghold. An ogre den, maybe, in the distance. Wolves hunting deer, no: elk. No humanoids coming this way, so that’s something.

She kicks off her sleep sack, then stands and stretches, a little snap and crackle coming from her tail just below the spine. She pokes at the fire with a stick to make sure it’s all the way out before moving into the clearing to work through her full morning exercises.

It’s one of the things she misses about the old BoB, everybody training together, first her old team (pour one out for Boyland), and then the— she laughs to think of it, when they thought of the boys as the Reclaimers. She taught Magnus these poses, when she was trying to help him get more sneaky. Feels weird to think of it, the idea that she was teaching him? Still, good times, really, getting to be friends.

She pauses in her forms to touch the necklace she still wears, the one that fits together with his to read  _ BEST FRIENDS. _

Merle wakes to the chittering of bugs in the grass around him. He feels surprisingly peaceful considering their circumstances. Mostly just sore. He gets up slowly and groans to himself, grumbles about how he’s too damn old to be sleeping on the ground like a teenager at Pan camp, but it’s not all so bad. 

He sighs, looking in the direction of the fortress, though he can’t quite see it from here. He turns in the opposite direction and spots Carey in the nearby clearing, stretching slowly, extending her arms and moving down into a lunge. He’s been slacking on his morning exercises lately. (Alright, well, always, but he’s  _ busy _ . Yeah, always busy.) Considering how well running up the hill went the night prior, a little yoga probably wouldn’t hurt. 

“Haven’t seen those moves since the Bureau, sister,” Merle says as he enters the clearing. “You always up this early?” 

She turns to look at him, moving through her poses as she stands to her full height. “Naw, not usually. But, y’know. Get up and moving, helps get my mind going. Plus….” She moves through another form, stretching out her legs slowly. “Gotta be limber for whatever.” She stops abruptly, tilting her head to one side. “Uh, Merle? Are those…? Bud, you got some actual twigs going on there.” She points to his beard, where several small sticks protrude from the unruly hair. 

“Oh, that’s just part of the cleric getup,” he says nonchalantly. Then, he snorts and picks them from his beard, taking care to make sure he gets the pair of ladybugs tickling his moustache, too. “Thanks.” 

Carey suppresses a snicker as she eases back into her routine. Usually, this is the point where she’d switch to practicing jumps and throwing knives, but she figures that’d just startle Merle.

“Am I interrupting? You can tell me if I’m interrupting. Taako gets real grumpy when I’m interrupting. Not at first, but boy do I pay for it later.”

She actually laughs this time. “Yeah I bet. And I’m good. You’re welcome to join in if you wanna.” She swoops down low, practicing her sweep kicks before twisting into a series of jumps. 

“Alright, well,” Merle huffs, crossing his arms as she hops about, an intense look on her face. “That stuff from before was more my speed. But I’ll just… be over here.”

“Aw, don’t be like that, bud. Show me what you got. I’m always game to pick up some new moves.”

Merle chuckles. “Alright, sister. Hope you’re ready to pump the brakes, ‘cause that,” he motions to her, wagging his finger up and down, miming her jumping motions, “hasn’t been my speed in a solid two hundred years or so. Counting my century’s pause, if you will.”

He faces her and shakes out the tension in his limbs, letting his arms hang loose at his sides, then waits as she does the same. He takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets his eyes fall closed. The sun is warm on his face and he lets himself feel it, just as he feels the grass beneath his feet, and the breeze tickling the hair on his legs. He exhales through his mouth and feels the aches of a night spent sleeping on the ground fading away, at least, as much as they can for now. 

“You’re gonna want to try to find your center of gravity, even though I’m sure you know all about that. But worth tryin’ my way, the  _ long  _ way, I guess. Doesn’t hurt to stay close to the ground ‘round here.” He opens his eyes: she’s just waiting quietly, eyes closed, face relaxed. “And I’m not just saying that ‘cause I’m short, so…” She smiles, then widens her stance a bit, feels her weight settle.

“So, just…” He raises his hands in front of himself and presses them together as if to pray, wood on flesh, and points his thumbs towards his chest. He doesn’t explain, just closes his eyes again and focuses on his breathing, leaning forward into his toes, then all the way to his right, back onto his heels, and then to the left. “And when you’re done… you just kinda…” 

He wonders if it’s as natural to her, to feel the warm, magnetic pull of the earth below that centers him and keeps him grounded. He takes a deep breath again and lets the connection flow through him and sharpen his focus. Then, he widens his stance and reaches both arms straight up, growing towards the sky in the dry morning air. 

She tries to follow his moves: they feel different, and she’s a little awkward with them at first.

“Can ya show me that again?” she asks. “I wanna make sure I got it right.”

Merle opens his good eye, smiling. “For you? Yeah.” 

Merle feels a bit more open and in his element. He makes sure she’s got her hands pressed together in front of her. “Thumbs to your chest,” he says, and she nods, tapping the sides of her thumbs lightly to her sternum. “Now, lean all the way into the balls of your feet.” She spreads her toe claws very slightly to feel the ground, still with a bit of morning chill but already warming quickly. If they were here for any other reason, it’d be a good day to find a warm rock and have a long nap. “Deep breath,” Merle says, inhaling himself, then exhaling slowly with her. “Now lean as far to the right as you can.” She eases into it, eyes on him as he moves. 

“What about the tail? To the right or is it okay if I counter-balance?”

“Uhh…” Merle keeps leaning easily to the side, thinking. “I don’t know shit about tails. Never really an issue for me.”

She nods thoughtfully, or tries to, while the tip of her tail flicks nervously. “Fair enough.” She tries pressing it down, on the theory that this is all about connecting to the earth, or something, and that deepens the stretch all the way into her core and down through her tail muscles. “Okay, cool. That works.”

“Then back,” Merle says as he leans back onto his heels. “As far as you can go.” And after she’s followed, pressing her heels and the end of her tail down, “And aaaall the way over to the left.” She feels the opposing stretch and lets out a little sigh.

“Now, the good part— just come back to the center and really feel it out, and if you got it, it should feel…” He wants to put a word to the feeling, but it’s been a  _ part  _ of him for so long now… “You’ll know, maybe. If you did it right, that is,” and he glances at her. “Centered?”

She’s got almost a grin on her face, and her tail slaps against the dirt as she rolls her shoulders.

“Bud, that is the good shit. I wish…” She gives a little laugh, somewhat embarrassed. “I was gonna say I wish you coulda shown us those moves back on the—” She inclines her head up, though the moonbase isn’t visible now. “But I guess that wasn’t an option, yeah?”

“Eh,” Merle shrugs. “Now ya know.” 

“I will deffo add that one to my routine. You got more like that, I’m guessing.”

“Oh, I got plenty.” He stretches his arms up and out, and winks. “Hope you’re ready.” 

“Always,” she replies, flexing. Then she snorts and points at her face. “Hey Merle, you got a little something something in there still.”

He shakes his beard out and a rogue twig falls to the ground. With a chuckle, he turns towards the sun and breathes deeply.

* * *

“Hey, kemosabe, you make this yourself?”

“Yeah.” A pause. “What of it?”

“It’s pretty dece, is what it is, my man…” Taako says, peering through the door at the half-orc’s guarded expression, marred by what looks like an old chemical burn on the cheek and jaw. “I’d introduce myself, but I’m guessing you already know who I am.” He hides the meekness in his laughter with a big, lazy grin. 

The guard can't seem to help but chuckle. Lucretia, in the other cell, silently holds her breath. 

“Sooo… that a yes? Like, from breakfast earlier? And like, saving the world and stuff?” The guard is still silent. Taako tips his chin up to try to hold his attention. “And _ TV?” _

“You’re a guy talks a lot of shit, seems like. Guy who didn’t have any breakfast, so maybe just eat your food?”

Lucretia looks out at the guard, carefully gauging the mood.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Why’s it matter to you?” He turns and looks in Lucretia’s direction, allowing Taako to quickly tie the band back into his hair.

As the guard turns back to face Taako once more, Taako thinks,  _ “I might be able to—”  _

_ “He made  _ your  _ food,”  _ she thinks urgently as soon as the connection is re-established, “ _ maybe you could get him to talk? We could learn something, I think.” _

_ “I know it’s my food, don’t be ridiculous,”  _ Taako thinks back, rolling his eyes. “ _ Don’t steal my spotlight, homie, this is my goddamn plan.” _ And then, aloud, he says to the guard, “No need for the sour attitude, my dude. You’re the one on the other side of the bars! And you’re in the kitchen doing  _ this?”  _ He motions to his dish on the floor. “Lemme get that name, I’ll pass on a good word to your boss.” 

The guard actually laughs at that. “Your good word isn’t worth shit in this place, or haven’t you noticed?”

“Christopher? Jeremy? Did I— Will you tell me if I guess? Barbara? Oh, god, not Barbara again.” Lucretia stifles a laugh.

“Alright, alright, it’s Kenneth, uh, Kenneth Bonebreaker.”

Taako grins and points a finger out between the bars of the small window. “I was close, though. Was gonna guess that one next, actually.” 

“Sure you were. Just eat, okay?” Kenneth’s tone is almost apologetic. “It’s not poisoned or nothing, not even any, like, sleeping stuff? Just potatoes and spices.”

“I know those spices. You’re not foolin’ me. C’mon, where’d you learn to cook like that?” 

Lucretia pipes up from her cell, “I don’t think there’s a single cook alive who doesn’t know that recipe. I think they just issue it in every kitchen now. Plus you put it in three different cookbooks. ‘Taako’s universe-saving tacos’, isn’t it?”

“And all I have to say about all of that, including the universe-saving but  _ especially  _ sharing my gift of fine cuisine with this entire plane of existence, is,  _ you’re welcome.”  _

“Don’t remember how I learned it, but I used to cook for the other miners when I was a kid,” says Kenneth. “It’s pretty easy, filling, don’t cost a whole lot. So yeah, thanks I guess.”

“Fair enough, Kenneth. Kenny? Ken? May I call you Ken?”

He shrugs. “Whatever. Not like—” 

“‘Live Like You’re Dying,’ am I right, Kenny Chesney?” Taako pauses, then thinks to Lucretia, “ _ Wait, fuck, that’s Tim McGraw. Fucking Merle.” _

_ “Don’t you dare mention Merle,”  _ thinks Lucretia in a panic.

_ “Relaaaax, sister,”  _ he tries his best to think in Merle’s voice. “ _ I’m not an  _ idiot.” And then, a familiar pang in his gut. “ _ Not anymore.” _

_ “No, you're right, this is—“ _

Kenneth draws Taako’s attention back. “I guess, man, sure, your funer—”

“I mean, if I’m— listen, if I’m gonna bite it in here anyway,  _ who  _ is gonna get the last of my culinary prowess out into the world? Kenny,  _ baby,  _ you’re a chef…” 

“I'm not a chef,” Kenneth says with that touch of a laugh. “I'm just a guy that got busted to KP for breaking my cool, no thanks to you.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m actually sorry about that. But c’mon, who can resist a good ol’ fashioned dig on that guy, eh?”

Kenneth makes a little noise of frustration, saying, “Hey, he's been good to me, but not always the best sense of humor, you know?”

Taako leans forward against the bars, his nose poking out between the two in the middle. “Hey, Kenneth? You know what happened to the last batch he was  _ good to,  _ right? Like, we’re on the same page? Like, Taako’s just sayin’.”

Kenneth frowns, worrying at his lip with a tusk. “What do you mean? That, uh, Burnsides guy did something to his town, right?”

_ Oh, shit,  _ Taako thinks, frantic but not panicking. Looking beyond Kenneth, he locks eyes with Lucretia.  _ Oh, fuck, he doesn’t— this can…  _

Lucretia lets out a soft dry laugh.  _ Shall I?  _

_ I mean, yeah, we— yeah, yes. Yes. Fucking sell it.  _

She steps to the door, still holding the plate in her hands. “In Raven's Roost, Kalen was a petty tyrant, he styled himself governor, and the people there….” She pauses, thinking of Magnus and his righteous anger. “They came  _ together  _ to fight him _ ,  _ and if Magnus is the one Kalen is after, it's only because— Because—” She swallows. The ruins of the Roost, and thinking he was dead, and everything was folly. 

“‘Cause he rained on Kalen’s little tyranny parade and wasn’t a massive fucking douchebag,” Taako finishes for her.

“He let Kalen live,” she says, venom in her tone. “And Kalen repaid that by killing—”

“No, I mean, let’s fucking call it what it is, he firebombed the whole town. Dunno what he told you about Magnus, but it’s probably not true.” 

Kenneth stares at Taako for a long moment, his expression unreadable. 

“I mean…” Taako leans forward, again, one hand wrapped around a bar. “You heard the Story, right?”

For a second, a look of something almost like fear crosses Kenneth’s face, and his tone is curt when he says finally, “I was just a kid, but yeah.”

“Doesn’t matter, you still know it. You really think, of all the people on this planet,  _ Magnus Burnsides  _ would do anything to hurt…” Taako trails off, not knowing how to begin to explain the sheer goodness of Magnus to a stranger. “Listen, I’m not the cream of the fuckin’ crop, alright? And neither is she.” He points across the hall at Lucretia’s cell. “But if anyone brought something  _ good  _ to the table here, it’s Magnus.” Taako pauses, watching waves of concern and confusion roll over Kenneth’s face. The orc won’t look up to meet his eyes. “But like, for the record, we still saved the world and stuff. We mentioned that, right?”

“Kenneth?” Lucretia's voice is soft now. “Magnus Burnsides spent all those years when we were on the run from the Hunger trying to take care of people. Not just his friends, but everyone he came across. And then, after— after what I did to him— he just kept doing that. In Raven's Roost, he loved that place, those people, he loved—” She takes a deep breath. “As Taako said, whatever Kalen has told you, it's wrong.” 

Kenneth shakes his head. “Why should I believe anything you’re telling me right now?” he says, first looking at Lucretia, then turning to Taako. 

Taako huffs and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a guy who  _ talks a lot of shit,  _ and also I’m locked in here and can say whatever I want. Fine.” Taako looks down at the plate of potatoes and thinks of home. “But I think you’ve seen this asswipe for who he really is, and I can tell you that what the Story had to say about Magnus? What we’re telling you now? That’s who  _ he  _ really is. And… I’unno. Do with that what you may, I guess. If making potatoes for Kalen’s gourmet dungeon is what you’re on board for, chase your bliss, dude. This has nothing to do with you. But, just thought you might wanna know the real stuff.” 

Kenneth looks on the verge of saying something, then looks abruptly at the far door. There's footsteps coming. Again, he looks like he's about to say  _ something,  _ but instead he moves out of their sight, maybe out of the room entirely. 

_ “Fucking shit,”  _ Taako thinks, leaning down to grab his plate and scarf down his now-cold potatoes. “ _ Back for round two— that was good though, I think? I fucking hope.” _

_ “He was a  _ child  _ on the Day? _ ” she thinks. “ _ Sweet Istus, he's practically a boy— he must be the same age as…. I hope we can— I hope this works.”  _ The footsteps come closer. “ _ Taako? Taako, whatever happens, we have to, we can't let anything happen to them.” _

Taako’s stomach turns. “ _ We won’t. Just— stay calm, it’ll be alright. If we go into this shit all worked up we’re toast. We’ve faced way worse than this prick, and the calvary is coming, so just… hang ten, alright?” _

_ “Taako, we— I need you to trust me.” _

The handle on the doorknob twists and the door to the dungeon swings open, echoing down the hall. “ _ Then I need you to trust me, too.” _

_ “Absolutely. And then we're going to kill him.” _

_ “Hell yeah,”  _ he thinks, but the footfalls are close and it’s quiet in his mind again. He looks across the hall and finds the small window of Lucretia’s cell empty, and he feels strangely and abruptly alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to bluecoloreddreams and the whole WDA for the ongoing goof of the Fantasy Cheesecake Factory necromantic cult. Also: Let! Dragonborn! Have! Tails!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle introduces Carey to an old friend. Someone else casts Zone of Truth. Lup gets Kravitz to spill the beans.

Carey is determined to handle this rescue correctly. To be careful and thorough this time. Even if the dwarf beside her in the underbrush won't stop grumbling about  _ why we gotta check every door, only gonna walk through one of ‘em, not like we can be more’n one place at once. _

“C’mon man, just let me do my dang job,” she says finally. “You wanna get captured too?” 

Merle sighs, looking up at the fortress. It feels like they’ve been scouting the place for hours, but she’s right, if they fuck this up, all four of them are boned. “Nah, not really.” 

“Alright then. Just keep it down and I’ll get us the best entrance.” It’s maybe another half-hour of slowly working around the clearing’s edge before she’s sure which one she wants to try: a small door like the one that turned out to be a trap, but on the other side of the building. That side has the best camouflage, closest to the treeline if they need to get away quickly. 

She gestures for them to move to the door, then crouches to begin picking the lock, but he taps her shoulder insistently before pulling a small statue out of his bag. It comes to life immediately, holding a set of lock picks triumphantly with one hand.

“Took ya long enough,” the gnomish statue complains, starting to waddle towards the door. “First you let your friends get captured, then I had to listen to you complain about walkin’ for the past couple hours, and now you’re locked out. And in your hour of need, you call on  _ me, _ ” Nitpicker says, pointing to himself. “Well, let’s get to it, then.” And Nitpicker reaches both arms upwards as if to ask to be lifted up to the lock.  

Carey closes her eyes, takes a long deep breath in, and says, “What the fuck, Merle.” 

“What? I’m helping.” 

_ “Helping?”  _ Nitpicker snorts. “Is that what they’re callin’ it now?” 

Carey laughs despite herself, shaking her head sadly. “Alright, bud, I guess you’re the one picking this lock, not me, an actual professional.”

“It’s Ernest.” Nitpicker folds his arms, tapping a finger on his opposite elbow, one brow raised. “What is it with you guys and calling me  _ Bud?”  _

“She don’t mean nothing by it,” says Merle. “Calls everybody bud, if that’s their name or not.”

Nipicker huffs, keeping his arms crossed. 

Carey lets out another exasperated laugh, saying, “Jeez, okay,  _ Ernest.  _ Just pick the damn lock and keep it down. You may have noticed we’re trying to  _ sneak  _ in.” 

“Oh, great, you’ve got a great track record with that one, Merle. You planning on releasing an insect plague again?” Merle scoops him into his hands and lifts him to the lock. “Don’t distract your impatient draconic friend, here. She seems a little more competent than you.” And as Carey opens her mouth, he cuts her off with, “But only a little.” 

“Listen, pal, that heist was a success, so don’t throw stones,” Merle grumbles, ignoring the look on Carey’s face.

“Real successful there, Merle,” says Nitpicker, his hands deep into the lock. “Remind me what happened to that whatchamabob you knuckleheads were after? Got outwitted by a grifter, amirite?”

Carey puts a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. She knows more than Merle could possibly guess, by a long shot, but she doesn’t want to embarrass him about it. Besides, she promised Lup.

There’s a loud click, and the door pops open as Nitpicker brushes imaginary dust from his hands.

“Alright, I guess don’t do anything more stupid than usual. You’re just gonna put me back in there with the stinky sandwiches and the—” He’s cut off as Merle opens up his pack and drops the gnome, inanimate once more, back inside.

“Fantasy Costco?” asks Carey. 

“You know, Magnus didn’t always  _ pick locks,”  _ Merle says, slinging his pack over his shoulder. “And  _ I  _ had the good sense to do somethin’ about it. Even if he’s a little… abrasive.” 

“Well, next time let me? Probably faster and less, uh, socially awkward? And from here on we better keep it quiet. No insect plagues, no ‘distractions’, just you know, follow my lead?” She gives him a serious a look as she can manage. 

“In the interest of not getting our asses handed to us, I’ll follow your lead. Yup. Got it. I know how to defer to the competent woman by now.” 

She shakes her head, then takes one last look around outside, opens the door a crack, and looks down an empty hallway. She lets out a sigh of relief—finally something going their way— and motions for Merle to follow her inside. 

* * *

Kalen stands in the hall between their cells, a grin spreading across his face.

“Lunch has you on your feet, huh? That good? We’ll have to put Bonebreaker on KP more often,” Kalen says joyfully, elbowing one of the guards flanking him. 

“You sure you don’t wanna go into the restaurant biz? We could make bank.” 

Kalen laughs, shaking his head. “Oh, Taako. I’ll pass. Rumor has it, you’re kind of a pain in the ass to work for.”

“Was that Fantasy US Magazine, or Fantasy TMZ?” 

“Sure, one of those things. We're all really big on that shit out here, for sure.”

Lucretia butts in acerbically, “I hope he's an easier boss than he was an employee.” She hopes this is the sort of thing that Taako was thinking of, letting Kalen believe they were more estranged than they are. More than she hopes they are. 

“You  _ would _ know about shitty bosses, huh Madame?” Kalen turns to smirk at her. She huffs out through her nose, keeping back from the door. “Ah, c’mon, why the long face? I just came to chat.”

“Chat?” she says warily. 

He turns away from her, waving a hand. “Oh, not with  _ you,  _ not quite yet. I think I'd like to have a little conversation with your former  _ employee  _ right now.” He gestures towards Taako’s cell, and one of the guards unlocks it; another goes inside and roughly forces Taako to stand, then ties his hands. “Just a precaution, you understand,” Kalen says in an uncomfortably reasonable tone. “I would hate to have to….” Another little handwave as he enters, one of the guards following with a stool. He sits, the guards leave the cell, and it’s just Taako and Kalen in a small stone room.

Taako wishes his hands free, imagines tearing Kalen's throat out and wiping that smug fucking look off his face forever. They’re alone and he’s helpless to do anything but stare, his own face a perfect mask of nothing at all. But he feels the weight of Magnus’s grief, the terror of every nightmare, the endless black columns of smoke spouting from Raven’s Roost and the rubble thereafter all burning and crumbling in his chest. He didn’t need to be there to know, to  _ feel _ , what Magnus felt. 

He thinks of Julia and his breath trembles as it leaves him. 

“So, what, a staring contest, then?” Kalen says, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. “You were all talk this morning, though I guess it took a little coaxing.” 

Taako wants to tell him to fuck off, but that won’t help their cause. He pushes all other thoughts from his mind and focuses on what he needs to do to get the ball rolling on getting the hell out of this shithole. “Thought I’d let you take the lead. You said you wanted to have a conversation, yeah?” 

Kalen smiles. “You don’t need to follow her to the bitter end, you know,” he says, tilting his head towards the door. “You all may have been,” and he shrugs, “whatever that was, but this doesn’t need to be your problem. After all, you’ve got a brand empire to run, right? Let  _ other people _ tilt at windmills.” He doesn’t say Magnus’s name; he might as well be shouting it. “We can make this easy, let you get back to it.” 

“You expect me to believe you’re just gonna untie me and let me walk out the door? C’mon, gimme a little more cred than that.” Taako shakes his head. “Walking in here? Fool me once. Walking  _ out?”  _

“I mean it, really. That simple. You tell me where Magnus is, my guards escort you right out to Hurn, end of story.” 

“ _ Oh!  _ Well you shoulda just said that! That is gonna be a  _ hard  _ pass, amigo. But thanks.” 

Kalen sighs and leans back. “Ah well. I didn’t really expect it, but you understand I had to try. I’m in your corner here, Taako. I don’t want to see you dragged into another mess due to  _ her  _ oversight.” 

“I can make my own mess, thank yooou very much,” Taako almost sings. He tries not to let the words sink in. Tries not to slip back into the state of mind where he might have agreed, before their time in the pocket spa, and his kitchen before it.

“Well….” He pauses, gaze tight on Taako. “If there are others in on this little  _ mess _ of yours, perhaps you can keep them out of it? We can keep this….” His tense smile twitches slightly. “I’m going to find him, you know. But if you make it easier for me, then we can keep….” He pauses, as if he hopes Taako will give something away. In the other cell, Lucretia holds her breath, thinking of Carey and Merle, thinking of Angus a half a world away. “You don’t have to let  _ everyone _ get caught up in your mess.” 

Yeah, they’re all caught in his mess, his whole family, and all the ones that had come after. And if they didn’t make it out of this, what mess would they leave behind? He flinches from poking at his own wound. “Everyone on this plane is caught up in my mess, baby. Taako’s world and you’re living in it,” Taako says, his face the very image of cool, though there’s an edge to his tone, something nervous and vicious all at once. He thinks of home. He thinks of how, with so much to lose, they can’t let Kalen leave here alive, even if it means… 

Kalen stands. “Oh, Taako. That’s unfortunate.” He waves forward the guard in the doorway, who hands him the roll. Lucretia catches a glimpse of his face as he takes it, and her heart freezes at the sight of genuine amusement in his eyes.

“Don’t,” she says without thinking, almost inaudibly, and Kalen’s smile deepens.

Taako’s eyes go wide as Kalen turns away from him entirely and crosses the hall to the door of Lucretia’s cell. He thinks into the connection, “ _ What are you doing?”  _ but she’s not there, he can’t find her voice, and it’s hopeless as long as their magic is dispelled. Confusion and panic and anger roll through him all at once. “ _ What are you  _ doing _?”  _ he asks again, knowing he’ll get no answer. Asking himself, maybe. 

She hadn’t intended to draw Kalen's attention, but now that she has it, she’ll take the focus away from Taako, let him catch a breath. She wishes she could communicate with him, but they promised to trust each other, right?

Kalen says, “Hmmmm, what's that?” and she squares her shoulders. 

“You're right,” she says, far more coolly than she feels. “This isn't Taako’s plan, there's no need for….” She gestures, light as air, almost a mimic of his mannerisms. “...all that. With him.”

The glint of amusement turns into a self-satisfied grin. 

“Is that so?” His eyes flicker back to Taako's cell. “I wonder if he would be as…self-sacrificing for you? Or are you just afraid he'll crack first? Ready to take away his choices under the guise of kindness, that's your way.” The way he looks at her is almost thoughtful. She has to remember that he's nothing, she can't let him get to her. He laughs softly. “Never mind, if you're offering I'll take you up on it.” Leaving Taako tied, but the door open, Kalen calls over the guard with the ring of keys. The guard enters and binds her hands while Kalen himself drags over his stool, the scraping of its feet the only sound in the room. He sits, then, while she stands, and he unfurls the roll across his lap with a low chuckle. 

“You know, I've been looking forward to getting Burnsides like this for a long time, but having you here is almost as good.”

She sniffs, maintaining her facade. “I don't know what you think you'll be getting out of that,” she says. 

“Some honest answers, for one,” he replies, selecting a gnarled wand. “You might be familiar with this little trick.” He mutters a command word and the wand glows a sickly yellow. The sensation is almost familiar, but more like a shock on the tongue than the rough buzzing that would flood her mind on succumbing to a Zone of Truth from Merle. 

She sucks in a breath. He again fixes her with that calm searching gaze. 

“Let's get to the point. Where is Magnus Burnsides?”

Taako tries to mask the sharp draw of his breath.  _ No, no, no, no—  _ the word just spins around endlessly in his mind. He’s in the zone as well, and he feels it coursing through him, but without any desire to speak before he’s spoken to. He just hopes beyond all hope that Kalen doesn’t ask anything that would make for a catastrophic failure, but this,  _ this,  _ has the potential for it. And so it just keeps pulsing, chanting in his head.  _ No, no, no, please, no.  _

She takes a deep breath. There's no feeling of compulsion, but she already knows she won't be able to lie. Evasion, though, that she knows how to do. 

“I don't know where he is right now.”

Kalen's expression darkens. 

“Of course you don't know where he is right  _ now _ , you've been in here. I wanted to know where— What is he planning?”

She almost laughs in relief. 

“He doesn't have a plan. He—” She stops herself. That's all that she can say. 

He stands, and she's uncomfortably aware of the small space, of his height, his large frame between her and the door, between her and Taako.

“ _ You _ have a plan though, don't you? For you and him” — he gestures toward Taako without ever taking his eyes off of her face— “and  _ him _ and….” He pauses. “Who's the kid? The ‘seeker’ who came to Hurn?”

Taako’s stomach drops to the floor as he scrambles to his knees. It’s screaming in his mind now—  _ NO—  _ and he begs her in their dead connection,  _ “Don’t, don’t, please, find a way.”  _ But there’s no way, nothing he can see without everyone they love coming down with them. Suddenly, their plans feel shattered, safety squandered, and she hasn’t even spoken yet. 

She stutters trying to find something that's true but useless. 

“It's— He's— No— Someone from the old Bureau.”

Kalen taps the wand against his leg. 

“You are a piece of work, Madame. According to Jerry, wasn’t much more than a teenager. ‘Old’ Bureau? You recruit kids for that? And keep ‘em around for  _ this _ ?”

It's not really Zone of Truth that pulls the plaintive note from her throat. “I didn't ask him to,” she says. “I didn't even know.”

He raises an eyebrow and clicks his tongue against his teeth. He tucks the wand under his arm and tips up her chin with his hand. She clenches her jaw, but she can’t stop the slight twist of her mouth, the sudden prickle of the edge of tears. 

“Who would do this without your knowledge?” he says softly. “Oh, you know what, I heard something once about a train down in Neverwinter. Heard they gave those guys a statue. And there was something… Something about a boy detective?” She inhales sharply despite herself. “Seems like someone  _ you _ would find useful.” He lets go of her face, takes a step back. “I think he might be more than that, though. I could make some guesses, but how about you tell me?”

She stands perfectly still and silent, unable to conjure any evasion. She can’t keep him safe with clever words. Her  _ son,  _ and she's forced to betray him. No, she won't do that, she'll stay silent here, even if it means— 

He steps close again. “I have other options,” he says. She stares at him with narrowed eyes. 

Taako can’t breathe. Everything,  _ everything  _ gone wrong at once and this was the one thing he’d been terrified of from the start. He’d known it was a possible, terrible outcome from the beginning, but even with all his anxieties he never could have imagined it going this far south so soon. 

He hears Kalen shuffling, the sound of wooden wands bumping together, and his blood runs ice cold.  _ No, no, no, no,  _ just, the only thing he can think. The only word he can hang onto. 

He swallows hard and searches for any other truth, anything to distract Kalen from whatever fucked up magic he has in the roll of wands. “He’s just—“  _ He’s just a kid,  _ he wants to say, but Kalen knows that and he doesn’t give a shit. “He’s a teacher at my school, can we chill for a sec?” Taako says to the closed door across the hall. 

A guard steps into view, but before he does anything, Kalen walks out of Lucretia’s cell, a new wand in his hand. He leaves the door open behind him and Taako can just barely see her there, looking brittle and hollow-eyed. Taako tries his best to put himself back together and look nonchalant about the growing threat before them. 

“You don’t look so good,  _ my man,”  _ Kalen says venomously, mocking Taako’s manner of speech. “You know something else I don’t know?” 

“I know Doug Math invented math. Did you know that?” 

“Fascinating. Enough about Doug, though. I’d like to know about the young man who came sniffing around on your behalf. Evidently, your former employer here, she didn’t send him, so why’s he care?”

Lucretia bites her lip to keep from screaming.  _ Please,  _ she begs of nothing, no other thought in her head but  _ please not this.  _ Then a deep breath. 

“There was an old order,” she says. “All the Seekers had it, I never…. When the Bureau changed, it was still out there.” She takes another breath, less shaky. “Any Seeker who heard anything of— of you— was to report it to me.” She smiles. Even in all this, she's proud of him. “Which is what he did. He was a very good Seeker, even if he was a child.”

But Kalen doesn’t even look her way. He crouches down in front of Taako and touches the tip of the wand beneath his chin. Taako’s whole body shakes, his fists clench, and he bites his tongue so hard that it takes his focus off his fear just for a fleeting moment. 

“Taako, Taako, Taako.” Kalen says quietly, clucking his tongue. “What is your sister going to do without you?”

Taako’s heart hammers so hard it’s all he can feel. That, and the wand pressing harder into his chin, burning. He’s instantly thrown back into his thoughts, his fears about Angus, his fears about  _ Lup.  _ She didn’t even know where he was, and if he died here— if he— He draws a shuddering breath, his vision blurred with burning tears, just trying to keep his mouth clamped shut. But the wand presses harder and he feels it in the air, the slight suck of the surrounding energy into itself, and he thinks of Lup, and Angus, and… and Magnus, another one of his lovers gone, Magnus, alone again. All he can feel is fear, pure and sharp and burning a hole through the middle of him. He blinks and tries to focus on the ground instead of Kalen’s face, but Kalen pushes his chin back up with the wand.

“Who is he, Taako? What’s  _ so  _ important about him?” Kalen asks, his voice harsher than before. Taako bites back his words. “No? Alright. Fine.” 

The Zone of Truth covers his tongue like poison and his head spins. He feels the spell charging and the panic, the intimidation, it renders him defenseless, and before he can stop himself, he blurts out,  _ “Their son!”  _ and he feels like he could vomit. 

Lucretia gasps, and Kalen stands, and he laughs. From anyone else, it would be a warm deep belly laugh, but from him…. She holds back a sob, tries to keep herself upright. Tries to remind herself that Angus is far away, out of his reach, and they're going to get through this. Somehow. 

“Well, isn't  _ that  _ interesting,” he says. “Burnsides got himself a kid. Who would have guessed?”

“Please, please don’t—“ Taako begs, all pride stripped away, all other cares entirely gone save for protecting Angus. Tears pour freely down his face. He  _ knew  _ it would end like this and he walked in despite the risk. “Please.”

“What  _ is it  _ with you all? He’s  _ their  _ kid _.  _ After everything she put you through, the hell do  _ you _ care for?” 

Taako swallows and it comes from him again with no ability to resist. “He was just a kid who had nothing and nobody, and I get it.” Taako’s breath comes and goes too quickly. He can’t stop speaking until it’s all out of him. “I know what it’s like to have nothing and I just want— I wanted him to have the normal life I didn’t get, please, please—” His cheeks burn red at the confession that propels itself from his tongue. “Please don’t—“ 

Kalen turns away without acknowledging Taako’s pleas. The guard unties him, relocks the cell. 

“Thank you,” says Kalen, looking down at Taako through the tiny window. “This is something— It's food for thought.” He turns to Lucretia's cell. As she's untied in turn, he says coolly, “You know, I can't imagine the Waxmen girl abandoning a child like that. Pity he didn't have one with  _ her _ .” Lucretia closes her eyes. When she opens them again, Kalen and his entourage are gone. 

“Fuck off! Just—fucking  _ fuck off!”  _ Taako screams, unable to stop himself, crumpling forward onto his hands. His wrists ache from the restraints. His cursing doesn’t matter. Kalen’s gone and he knows the only thing they needed to keep secret. And it was his fault. 

He sobs, and sobs, and he thinks he’s wailing but he can’t tell if it’s even his voice anymore. Every last bit of him screams in agonized protest, in  _ shame  _ for what he’d done.

She leans against the door of her cell and calls out to him, saying his name several times. Then she says, “I would have given it away if you hadn't.” She burns with her own shame. “He didn't even need Zone of Truth to know there was something to dig into. I couldn't— he saw it in my face.”

Taako can’t respond, all of his thoughts scattered and aflame, all sense gone from him, just trying to hang onto the dry stone of the floor. He heaves through another wave of nausea. Nothing she says now can absolve him of this, even if she believes it’s the truth. 

She paces restlessly in her cell, muttering nervously, angrily. 

“I should have known he would— When he showed up, why did I make him a Seeker — what was I thinking? I should have warned— I could have— I used to be  _ good  _ at keeping my feelings out of—” She stops, placing a hand on the wall, trying to steady her breathing. “I'm so sorry Taako. He never should have been part of this.” 

As soon as Kalen’s finally far enough away from them, the field of magic suppression lifts, the connection of the band reasserts itself, and Taako’s panic gathers and crests in her own mind as an insurmountable wave. She hears him crying aloud accompanied by all his desperate, terrible thoughts, and just  _ Angus, Angus, Angus,  _ over and over again above it all. She wants to comfort him, to bring him back, but he’s far away and lost in his own pain.

So she closes her eyes. His wailing fades into the background, and she replays the entire conversation in her mind as she would have recorded it in another life, every searing word. 

And then she begins to laugh. She tries to draw Taako’s attention again, first gently through their telepathic link, finally calling his name out loud. 

He hears his name but can’t find it in himself to respond. He feels her there, in his mind, and all he wants to do is tear the band from his head again and get lost beneath the weight of all he feels. But he doesn’t. He just listens, though his fear continues to demand most of his attention. 

In his mind she says, “ _ We gave him  _ nothing _. He knows what Angus is to us, but not his name nor where he is. He still doesn't know that Magnus isn't here, or that Merle and Carey  _ are _. It's awful, yes, and if we don't— But we will. He won't live long enough to use this thing he thinks he's taken from us.”  _

Taako is…  _ angry.  _ It catches him off-guard. He was angry before, of course, but not like this, not at her. He squeezes his eyes shut and does all he can to keep from shouting aloud. The last thing they need now is a guard coming back, or worse, just having Kalen turn around and come back for round two. But she’s in his head, and she, in true  _ Madame Director  _ fashion, is pretty fucking blasé about the imminent disaster on their hands.  _ Made by  _ their hands. 

_ “It’s awful? Yeah?”  _ he thinks, the Zone of Truth still crackling in his mind, unwittingly sending forth thoughts he would have otherwise tried to stifle.  _ “He’s your fucking kid and you’re— you—”  _ he lowers himself to the floor and presses his face to the cool stone of the wall as his thoughts sprint away from his grasp.  _ He’s your fucking kid and you let this happen, you didn’t listen to me, you didn’t fucking listen when I said this was a bad fucking idea, and now— I gave— God, Angus— I— no, no, no, no, please, no— Lup— I knew we shouldn’t have come, I shouldn’t have trusted—  _ His thoughts rage in and out of focus and he can barely breathe. His presses so hard to the rock that the grain of it digs into his face and aches.  _ We’re going to die in here and Magnus will be alone again and— Lup— and it’ll be my fault, my fucking fault.  _

_ “Stop it.”  _ Her voice is like steel in his mind. He wants to push back but he just fucking resigns.  _ “We're not going to die. Not here, not now. Listen to me, and  _ think.  _ You are the smartest person I know, you always have been. We gave Kalen an  _ idea _. Not a name, not a place, and while he loses time trying to figure out what to do with—”  _ For a second her composure cracks.  _ Dear Angus, my son, what have you done?  _ A well of terror and grief, and a lid snapped over it in an instant.  _ “With information it could take weeks to exploit. Carey and Merle, they're coming, and we'll keep looking for an opening. For something, anything—” _

She looks through the window again. She can’t see him. Aloud she says, “I swear to you, we won't let Magnus end up alone.” 

The spinning of his thoughts slow, the even, solid cadence of her voice in his mind bringing him back from the brink of his own catastrophizing. His whole body feels like dead weight as he lifts his head from the wall and puts it in his hands. 

He’s acutely aware of the emptiness of the cell, wishing he just had someone to reach for. He’s not used to having no one there. She’s right and she’s all wrong, all at the same time, and he wants to believe her, that Angus will be safe, that they’re going to live, that he’s smart enough to get them out of there, but he can’t. He can’t, but he’s trying, for Angus’s sake, for Magnus’ and Lup’s and himself and for hers, too. 

“Creesh,” he says tearfully, so quiet that she just barely hears him. He doesn’t know what else to say. 

There are no words that feel adequate to this moment, the two of them trapped here, waiting, hoping. Only an acknowledgement that they are still together in this. “Yes.” 

He lifts his head and wipes tears away with the heel of his hand, and he thinks,  _ “I’m sorry.”  _

She laughs, dry but fond.  _ “No need.”  _

There’s so much more to say, but he settles for the sound of her laugh. The fact that it’s still there at all seems like a miracle in itself. He wipes his hand over his face, but as he does, he hears— his ears quirk upwards. Someone moving.

_ “Stand still.” _

_ “I’m not—“  _

Footsteps, unmistakably. The hinges of the heavy dungeon door groan as it opens, and a long pause follows as he holds his breath, his and Lucretia’s thoughts completely silent. 

“ _ Who…?”  _

The door closes with a thud, the footsteps recede, and they’re alone. 

* * *

Beneath Lup’s desk, her leg bounces with restless energy. With her stone of farspeech still silent, and her pile of paperwork nearly complete, she can’t focus. Something uneasy twists in her gut like a knife each time she glances at the stone, then her papers, then the stone, then the framed drawings on her desk. That lingering feeling, that quiet alarm bell ringing  _ something is wrong, something is wrong,  _ it’s near impossible to ignore now. She gets up and paces, tries to breathe deeply, flicks her scythe in and out of existence and twirls it around in her hands.

She’ll call Kravitz, then. He’d seen Taako last, so he might have an answer. Goddess knows she needs one if she wants to get anything else done today. 

She tunes to his frequency, tapping the butt of her scythe on the stone floor impatiently until he picks up. 

“Lup?” 

“Got it in one, dear,” she says, wasting no time on greetings. She perches on the edge of her desk. “Is Taako with you?” 

He clears his throat uneasily. “Well, no, he's not here.” He moves out onto the porch, out of earshot of Magnus; the orange cat, Bringer of Death to Mice and Voles, follows him with a questioning  _ mrow. _ With the tone under her words, he’s realizing what Taako might  _ not  _ have said. 

“Do you know where he is?” She fiddles with the handle of the scythe, moving it back and forth with one nervous hand. “I talked to Ren and she said there was nothing set for the cookbook and he’s not picking up his stone.” 

“The cookbook?” Kravitz suppresses a sigh. It's like that, then. “Is that what he said?” 

The scythe stops in her hand. “What did he say to you?” 

He lets out a long breath. “He— Uh—”

“Kravitz?” she says, a warning edge to her voice. “Do you  _ know  _ where he is?” 

“Lup, I— It's fine, it's just, you know, it's Taako.” It's not his place to say, he thinks. He's uncomfortable being in this position: he'd prepared to deceive Magnus, but Lup is a different story. 

Lup reels for just a moment, her mind split between anger and distress. He’s keeping something from her, she can feel it, and it’s demanding all of her focus. “It’s not fine, Kravitz, he’s not picking up and I don’t know where he is—” She can hear her own voice rising, though she tries to keep it as level and calm as Kravitz and their Goddess so often do. She knows she sounds irrational,  _ knows  _ this is a result of a decade’s worth of separation, but she can’t help it. 

“I'm sure he'll call as soon as he can,” Kravitz says, in what he already knows is a futile attempt at soothing her. 

No, no, this would not do. She hops off the desk and holds the scythe high, frustration and nervous energy buzzing through her fast enough to take her home on its own. She shouldn’t leave on the clock, but she doesn’t give a shit, not right now. She slices a tear to their home and steps out, Kravitz nowhere in sight until she catches a glimpse of him through a far window, further down on the porch. She hears Magnus in the other room, carving. She knows the tiny scrape of his knife on wood. But her bone to pick is with Kravitz, and so she nearly charges out to the porch and takes him by surprise. 

He whirls around when she opens the door, confusion taking his face as he opens his mouth to protest, but she beats him to it. The cat zips between them and down into the garden.

“If you know where he is, you need to tell me. Like, yesterday.” She steps closer, just wanting to ask him:  _ He told you and not me?  _ But she doesn’t, she just stares, her lips pressed into a tight line. “Something is up and I can smell Taako’s bullshit from a mile away, so you may as well give up the ghost.” She’s angry, but she can still take the time to appreciate a good pun as it comes. “...So to speak.” 

He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Alright.” He glances toward the door. “Let's go out to the garden, I don't want to disturb—” He starts down the stairs without waiting for her. “Honestly, I don't understand why he didn't just tell you. I do adore him, but….” 

“But— he’s okay? You know where he is?” She feels relieved for a moment; maybe the feeling in her gut had just been her overreacting. “If he’s pulling this stunt to shop for party supplies or some shit, I swear to every god, what party would even be coming up to—” 

She stops when she sees the look on his face. He touches her shoulder and it only makes her feel worse.

He’s been trying not to worry; it rarely does any good, especially where Taako is concerned. But if Lup is worried, that actually makes him feel less easy, warring with his instinct to keep the peace.

“He’s with Merle and Carey and…” He pauses; she’ll be startled at best. “With Lucretia. She found Kalen, and they’re…. Taking care of things.” He looks up towards the house. “It’s someplace where stones of farspeech don’t work very well, I gather. I’m sure they have it under control. I expect to hear from him any minute now.” He’s yearning to hear that triumphant cackle, to hear all the details over several glasses of wine. 

Lup blinks, letting Kravitz’s words sink in. “They’re  _ what?”  _ she asks once she’s reclaimed some of her sense. As Kravitz opens his mouth, she cuts him off and asks, “They’re  _ where?”  _

Not only Taako, but Merle and Carey too, and  _ Lucretia?  _ Lup’s throat tightens. Obviously Kalen needs to die, there’s no getting around that. She’d heard the stories about Julia from Magnus. And hell, she’d been there in Wonderland, listening from the umbrastaff, when Magnus gave up his memories of the douchebag. But for the four of them to go do this, to just up and leave and put themselves in danger like that while she sat in her damn office, completely unaware?  _ What are you doing?  _ she thinks as if she’s asking Taako. She tries to understand his reasoning, and she  _ gets  _ the desire for revenge, but why… Why would he just  _ go  _ without her even knowing? 

Her stomach lurches and her pulse pounds in her ears. She breathes, tells herself not to overreact, but she’s helplessly anxious as she stands there in the garden. She knows something is wrong. She doesn’t know what, but she knows, no matter what Kravitz tries to explain away.  

“He called from a town near the Dragonsword mountains, yesterday? No, wait, day before yesterday.” Time, ordinary linear time, remains a surprisingly slippery concept for Kravitz. But two days seems longer than normal for one of Taako’s adventures. He tries to reassure himself that they’re probably still on their way to their destination. 

Lup’s heart leaps forward, buzzing with eager, nervous energy. “What town? Where is it? We can—”  

“Lup.” Kravitz looks back towards the house, where Magnus sits unaware. “He didn't ask us for help.” It’s awkward, in the way that it’s often awkward for him, being caught up between them, in this whole complicated web of family and friends, the half-spoken mess of mortal lives.

“I don’t care! I don’t—” she stops once more when Kravitz’s expression shifts, his brows furrow, a slight frown. Everything she wants to say gets tangled up in her mouth. She wants to tell him that he doesn’t understand, that Taako is her heart, that she knows beyond all doubt that he needs her, that it’s  _ cool  _ that he’s Taako’s boyfriend, but he’s not his  _ sister,  _ and he doesn’t have the right to make the call that they should just be  _ sidelined  _ while the four of them do goddess-knows-what on the other side of the world. 

But Taako didn’t tell her. He didn’t ask her for help. And she wants to call that unusual, but her heart sinks as she realizes she can’t remember the last time he  _ did.  _

“He can do this,” Kravitz says. “Sometimes we just have to trust him, you know? Even when he’s being…” 

“Yeah,” Lup says, though the feeling in her stomach doesn’t subside. 

“It’s Taako, right?” He squeezes her shoulder again and she sighs. “If you like, ring up Barry and we can all have dinner tonight. Tell stories while he’s not around to get embarrassed about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We owe anonymousAlchemist an immense debt; we’ve both been tremendously influenced by the fantastic, if unfinished, [Up The Revolution](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11110773), and this chapter in particular was specifically shaped by that work. It was also shaped to some extent by some excellent headcanons about how Zone of Truth works for Merle vs anyone else in Faerun.
> 
> Also, when Clint used Nitpicker in the Atlanta liveshow when a rogue (Magnus) was right there, we felt extremely vindicated.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus makes a confession. A half-orc thinks about his life. Merle and Carey wreak havoc. Taako makes a deal.

It's been a day and a half since Angus McDonald got chewed out by his mentor and his mother. A day and a half of avoiding the conversation that he's pretty sure Kravitz wants to have. Of trying to keep his father occupied, distracted from Taako’s abrupt absence.

A day and a half in which he's been fighting a growing unease about the whole situation. He quashes it with reason, mostly: there's no _reason_ to believe that they won't be successful, that they can't take down Kalen. He's seen what they can do, all of them.

On the other hand, he once spent a Candlenights evening in a ogre’s lair because Merle had a dumb idea.

So he keeps himself busy, keeps Kravitz from cornering him and asking his role in all of this. (He knows about the pact Merle and Taako made with his dad; he knows it's important. And he hopes— If mom is part of it, then maybe the reconciliation that everyone told him was impossible, maybe it isn't. Maybe the two people he loves best will work out their shit.)

And when he wakes up early after a restless sleep, two days after he got back to Neverwinter, he gets up and goes for a run to try to settle that uneasiness. His old soccer team is running drills in the park, and coach has him help out with the little kids. It's fun, encouraging them. It's distracting.

He heads back to the house at a slow walk, a bit more relaxed after the exercise. But there's something, and all the distraction in the world won't make it go away.

As he approaches the house, he can see Kravitz in the front garden, and he starts to brace himself to finally have the conversation. But Kravitz is already talking to someone else— not Magnus, but Lup. And Lup looks deeply unhappy.

And something clicks. A little thing. Something the halfling had said, when he went to Hurn, repeating something his cousin had said. Then Angus McDonald, the world's greatest detective, realizes how badly he was used.

He almost throws up right there on the street. _He sent them into a trap._

The garden gate bangs behind him as he comes up the front walk. He nods at Lup, almost too curt to be polite, then looks intently at Kravitz.

“Sir, I need to talk to you right away. I think it’s, I think, I might—” He takes a breath to get his runaway thoughts under control. His eyes flicker to the slight frown on Lup’s face. “Can we talk, please? It’s very important.”

Kravitz raises an eyebrow. Angus doesn’t usually confide in him about personal matters, at least not when it’s something as obviously distressing as whatever is bothering him now.

“Are you sure you need to talk to _me_?”

Angus sighs. “Yes, sir, _please, now,_ it’s about—” And in quick succession he looks from Kravitz up to the front door and over to Lup, his face a mask of discomfort.

Lup follows his line of sight and then locks her gaze on his when his eyes reach her. He knows something, and she _knows_ he knows something, and from the look of things, it’s not good.

“Go ahead dear, spill it,” Lup says, the slightest edge of aggression to her voice. “Anything you can say to Krav here, you can say to me.”

Angus lets out a sigh of relief. “Okay, thank you ma’am, maybe you can help too, in that case. I’ve been thinking about, well, so I guess I didn’t tell anybody what I was, and I know you’ve been wanting to talk to me about it, sir, but I just, I didn’t think it was going to be a problem, but I’ve been thinking about how I, um, how I got the information? About, um, a certain?” He looks up towards the door, still closed. “And I realized something that the person, or halfling I guess, who I talked to, something he said about something his, I guess cousin said, about Kalen, and I think….” He finally takes a breath. “I think they might be in a lot of trouble, sir.”

Lup’s vision nearly goes red as her blood crackles in her ears. “Oh, you’re _sure_ they have it under control now, Krav?” she shoots, pointing a sharp finger at Kravitz. “I _knew_ something was up, and now—” she stops, her moment of vindication not nearly as satisfying as it could be as the building wave of reality looms over her. Taako, Merle, Carey, Lucretia, they’re out there in danger.

Kravitz’s voice is barely a whisper. “Oh my queen please no,” is all he says. “Not my love, not yet.” Then he closes his eyes and takes a long slow unnecessary breath. When he opens them again, he ignores Lup’s pointed finger, instead looking intently at Angus. “Do you know where this fortress is?” When Angus shakes his head, he continues, “I need you to tell us who you talked to in Hurn, what they said, and how to find them again. And I need you to _stay here_ and take care of Magnus. And _that is it.”_

“Sir, I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t mean….” There are tears in his eyes as he looks at Lup. “Ma’am, I fucked up, and I’m not too surprised if you’re mad at me. I just wanted to…. I thought this was gonna help.”

“I need to know who you talked to in Hurn _now,”_ she said. There’ll be time for apologies and puppy dog eyes later, right now she just needs to know where the hell Taako is.

He rubs his face; he’s taller than both of them, but suddenly he feels small, a little kid intimidated by legends. But she’s right: they do need to know, for everyone’s sake. Make it better, _then_ apologize, he thinks. He squares his shoulders with a deep breath. As he’s opening his mouth to speak, the front door bangs open and the three of them all look in unison as Magnus steps onto the porch.

“Oh, Ango! You’re back! And Lup, cool, great! Can I make you a cup of tea? Is Barry coming over? Maybe we’ll play a board game? Taako never wants to play Fantasy Ticket to Ride, so we could play that.” He starts down the steps as the three of them stare at him.

“Hey, dear?” Lup says politely, sucking in all of her anger. “We just need a few minutes, I need to have a little _talk_ with dear Ango and Kravitz here, and then we can talk board games, okay?”

“What’d they do n—?” Magnus tries to joke, but Lup whirls back towards him and he straightens his spine.

“Magnus?” she warns.

He blinks and frowns and looks like he’s about to say something more when Angus adds, “It’s okay, Dad, be there in a sec?” Magnus throws up his hands and goes back inside. They all watch until the door closes behind him.

Lup turns back to Angus immediately. “We need to know _everything_ you know. Now.”

Angus takes a deep breath. “Alright. Okay. Okay,” he repeats to himself, and starts from the beginning.

* * *

Kenneth moves from the place where he'd stood out of sight through the whole interrogation, opens and shuts the big door as quietly as he can, heading out of the dungeon in a bit of a daze. He can't get it out of his head. Not just hearing Taako— world-famous Taako from TV, someone Kenneth maybe looked up to but he’d kick your ass if you said so Taako— sobbing in terror, or Lucretia the actual journal-keeper who lived on the moon, stumbling over her words as Kalen threatened...her kid? Yeah, the kid, that’s what he can’t get out of his head.

The kid, and how much they worked together to try and protect him. All that sniping at breakfast, just gone.

He stopped in an empty hallway, worrying at his lip with one tusk. It’s not just the kid, is it? Even “a kid who had nothing and nobody”, which been there, done that, just how it is. Bet he never had to mine silver. Supposedly these two just don’t get along, and it was kinda interesting to see how the gossip of famous people in big cities wasn’t really all that far off. But when it was just the two of them, and him, they were like one damn voice saying his boss was wrong about this guy they’re supposed to be killing.

He’s not really one to think a whole lot about right and wrong. He’s got food to eat and a place to sleep, and breaking heads is easier than breaking ore. Sometimes he gets to cook.

But, a kid.

Whatever, kid grew up someplace where people actually came together at the end of the world, probably didn’t get locked out of whatever hiding holes folks found when the invisible monsters came. Kid’s not even really a kid, he rationalizes. Probably as old as he is.

He tries to think he’s disinterested, that it doesn’t matter. Nobody out there would scream like that if someone came for him.

Kid’s got folks who care more about him than themselves; it’s...weird. It aches, thinking about it too much, wondering what that would even be like. He doesn’t like being on the side of someone who’s so happy to come for a kid, instead of someone so desperate to defend one.

Lucretia’s tone of pride; Taako saying he wanted the kid to have a normal life. Kalen mocking them both. It doesn’t feel good. He doesn’t feel good. He tries to just go back to work like normal.

The breakroom is noisy, raucous. Anyone who didn’t get to watch wants to hear all about it, and the ones who were there are outdoing each other to describe the whole scene in excruciating detail.

“Hey Bonebreaker, you gotta hear this,” says one. “Remember how they were all fucking cool and shit this morning? Well Kalen _fucked them up_. Fucking badass.”

“Not even any broken bones or anything, it was—” The other guard, Kaiser, breaks off with an expansive gesture. “Boss has a gift or something, I don’t even know.”

Frank looks up from a seat at the big table. “Sucks you were on KP, kid,” the older orc says. Wrinkles and scars are carved deep into his rough skin. “Coulda learned a thing or two, watching that. Get to know how we _really_ work ‘round here.”

“The re-telling’s enough, I guess,” Kenneth says, looking to the two guards now going back and forth with impressions of Lucretia and Taako’s agony. Something about the way one of them cries (between fits of laughter) _“Oh, please, please!”_ gets under Kenneth’s skin and stays there.

“This ain't nothing,” says Terry, an older human with a long scar from ear to chin. “It's gonna be a whole other situation when we get that Magnus Burnsides. Been waiting for this for… Fuck, ten years? No, more than that now. About fucking time.”

Kaiser stops his impression of Lucretia’s voice and says, “You tell Kenneth the best part, old-timer?”

An almost feral grin cracks that grizzled face. Kenneth is uncomfortably reminded of the aunt who handed him off to the miners.

“There’s a guy we were using to feed ‘em info, you know, lure Burnsides and his crew out here.”

Frank interrupts, as usual. “All that ‘Bureau of Benevolence’ mess, interfering busybodies and goody two shoes orcs forgot the old ways.” Kenneth hears a odd noise from the doorway, but doesn’t think much of it.

The old-timer rolls their eyes. “Yeah, we all know how you feel about that. _Anyway,_ turns out, this young blood is Burnsides’s _kid._ Not from the wife, either, the one we took out back in the day, but _her.”_ Terry’s rough chuckle twists in Kenneth's gut. “Some kinda love child soap opera crap. I figure boss is working out how to get the whole damn family. Didn't think I'd live to see the day.”

“Soon, though,” says Frank. “Real fucking soon.”

“Can't believe that whiny little elf gives a shit about that bitch’s kid,” says a guard. “ _Oh he had nothing._ Who fucking cares?”

“Crack open the ale? Time for a little celebration,” suggests another.

The orc stands at that. “Plenty of time for that after. I'm pretty sure most of you idiots got places to be.”

They file out, grumbling. Just the older guards and Kaiser are still in the room with him when they hear a stumbling footstep.

“Ow, dammit,” says a gravelly voice that none of them recognize, followed by a barely audible shushing noise.

“Hey, who’s there?” says Frank, as the others look for the source of the sound. Then there’s a streak of blue as a figure emerges from the shadows, her cover blown, heading right for Frank as if no one else were there.

“ _Goody two shoes orcs?”_ she says, then: “Nobody talks shit about my wife,” her words punctuated with the stabbing of knives. But she’s misjudged, and her strikes skitter off of his armor.

“A hand, bud?” she says, startlingly calm for her precarious situation.

“Oh, _now_ you want my help,” says the other, a dwarf with a messy beard, an eyepatch, and a wooden arm. A dwarf whose face had been beamed into Kenneth’s mind all those years ago. “Oh holy Della Reese, come save our ass,” he intones. Then an enormous glowing figure of a woman with a shield and a sword appears next to Frank and the dragonborn woman. Her face is calm and motherly, white hair piled atop her head, and the sword slices through Frank.

Everything goes very quickly after that: Kaiser moves to the dragonborn, but he doesn’t have his pike, so all he can do is punch her, and as he approaches he too is sliced by the strange being of light. Frank takes a swing, but he misjudges the dragonborn's size as badly as she had misjudged his. She returns the attack and this time her knives hit true. He’s bleeding badly, everyone is shouting for Kenneth to come help, but he’s frozen in place, even as Terry runs past him, sword drawn, only to also be struck by the figure, which vanishes abruptly as it had appeared.

Then another word from the dwarf, and a column of flame fills the center of the room, and when it’s gone, Frank and Kaiser are just ash on the floor and Terry is covered in burns. The dragonborn woman, having rolled out of the way, is merely singed.

“Thanks for checking before setting the grill to high,” she says with a grimace.

“You ain’t cooked, are ya?” Merle calls as she turns to run back at the only one of them left standing. She and Terry trade blows, his sword caught against her knives, her frill just starting to open, her eyes fierce. The dwarf— Merle Highchurch, the Peacemaker— holds out a hand and a tiny bolt of light strikes Terry in the chest; as he falls, the woman (not one of the seven, Kenneth has no idea who she is) slits his almost certainly already dead throat. She wipes the blades on his shirt, then points one at Kenneth, and then it’s just the three of them: the dragonborn, Merle Highchurch, and him.

She looks at Merle, then says, “It’s way more awkward if they don’t fight, but we can’t let him….” Kenneth looks between the dragonborn and Merle, his hands still at his sides.

Merle lets out a deep sigh. “Alright, I guess…”

“You’re here for them, aren’t you?” Kenneth says. The smell of smoke and blood is heavy in the room, which on some level is not really new or unusual. He never thought much about the future, but it always seemed likely that he’d die in some situation like this, outmaneuvered by someone smarter or faster or stronger.

He looks from the dragonborn’s narrowed eyes to Merle’s lined face. He hears Lucretia’s last words in his head _we won’t let Magnus end up alone_ and the tone of tenderness in the nickname Taako said in reply, thinks of the kid. He wonders idly if he could fight his way out, if he’s ready to die for a man who threatened a kid, if he has any other options. “I can show you where they are.”

Carey tilts her head. “No tricks, bud. You’ve seen what I can do, don’t even try it.”

He lifts up his empty hands. “No tricks.”

* * *

After they recover from being spooked by the abrupt opening and closing of the door, Lucretia tries to keep things...not normal, exactly, but not dwelling on their situation, either.

_“I’ve got to know, though— how did you possibly keep Magnus from coming along on an adventure?”_

Taako laughs a little. _“Kravitz, mostly.”_

She smiles. _“I can see where that would be distracting.”_ A pause. _“He’s been good for both of you, as far as I can tell.”_

 _“Yeah, he’s…”_ Taako’s expression drops slightly. He wonders if the next time he sees Kravitz will be in the flesh, or… He stops the train of thought abruptly. _“He does a lot. For everyone.”_

_“Lup seems to think the world of him, both as a colleague and as family. It’s great you all can make that work so well.”_

Taako is quiet for a long time, thoughts about home quickly coming back to roar over each other. _“Yeah,”_ he forces to her above his other thoughts before they start seeping into her mind, too.

She sighs, thinking of Lup as well, the last time they spent the afternoon together just talking and walking, arm in arm. It’s finally easy with the two of them again, most of the time. She hopes maybe someday they can all spend time together. Maybe. Someday.

 _“I should send Kravitz a gift or something for taking care of Magnus for us, then,”_ she says finally. _“Is there something in particular…? He seems like a wine guy.”_

Taako can’t get past how foolish it feels to plan for _after._ But she’s trying and he wants to humor her, at least. _“Yeah, those dark, dry reds. You two snobs would have a field day.”_

But it’s silent again, and Taako realizes that the connection is gone. And his heart stops.

He hears heavy footsteps, then the door to the dungeon swings open and slams against the stone wall. Taako knows that dark chuckle, the one that’s branded into his mind forever now. All he can do is try not to panic. At least Kalen is _here,_ where he can’t do harm to anyone else they’ve endangered.

He tries to hold onto that thought of Kravitz, of all the stolen sips of wine that Taako didn’t hate, but wouldn’t admit. He wants to believe he’ll be home with him again. He wants to.

Lucretia stands to prepare herself; in her mind’s eye she sees the wine shelf in her apartment. To ground herself she walks through the labels, trying to imagine which one will be the best gift. She’ll see it again, she’ll make the effort to pick the right one, perhaps now she should make the effort to make friends with Kravitz.

There’s only one set of footsteps, and when she looks through the small window, she only sees Kalen. He ignores her, bending down to open the lock on Taako’s door.

He walks in, a rope in his hands. “I’d like to trust you’re not going to try anything, but…”

Taako sucks in a deep breath and looks up at Kalen from his spot on the floor. He’s not going to cry. He clenches his jaw and stands. “Wasn’t gonna, unless you plan on getting handsy, my dude.”

Kalen chuckles and shakes his head. “Glad to see you’ve recovered after your little meltdown.” He steps aside and motions to the open door, Lucretia visible in the window across the hall. Kalen turns them away from her line of sight and quickly binds Taako’s hands behind his back. “Let’s take a little walk, Taako.”

She clenches her fists against her sides, nails digging half-moons into her palms. On some level, she had assumed— that’s just how interrogations work, separate the prisoners, let them give each other up. She just has to trust. As Taako walks out of the room ahead of Kalen, she tries to catch his eye. He looks worn and scared. She tries to think of something to say but her words fail her.

“BRB,” Taako says, humor in his voice but none in his eyes. He holds her gaze as long as he can, fruitlessly thinking into their dead connection, calling her name, trying to promise her something he doesn’t know how to say, until Kalen shoves him ahead towards the dungeon door and Lucretia is completely out of view.

Kalen leads him down several hallways of the same stone, guards passing, jabbing, sneering, and Kalen joking with them, too. It makes him sick, how they all seem so eager to do their worst at any given moment. He focuses on how much he fucking hates _that_ instead of worrying about home. Or worrying about Lucretia.

Finally, Kalen leads him to a door, same as all the others, and unlocks it. The space is oddly bare: an oblong table, a few chairs, a weapons cabinet. Tall narrow windows through which Taako can see glances of the harsh landscape outside. A few scrolls on the table, which Kalen sweeps up and deposits on a side console.

He settles himself into the best chair of the lot: wood and black leather with a high padded back.

“Sit,” he says, neither a question nor an invitation.

“Minimalist. I dig it,” Taako quips weakly as he sits in the chair across from Kalen. He looks past him at the windows, feeling the desperate pull of the outside tugging violently at his chest. “Didn’t peg you for an office guy.”

Kalen smiles, a small mean smile, tight with annoyance.

“So, the boy,” Kalen starts, and in an instant Taako’s blood is ice. “You know, we all say things we don’t mean, once in a while. I think you and I could come to an agreement, if he’s all that.” His voice is the epitome of reason. He taps the wand against the table. “I’ll give you a choice. You can wait here, and eventually, well…. Or you can walk away, let what’s going to happen happen, and I give you my word I won’t touch the kid.”

Taako falls silent, his mind a flood of conflicting thoughts. He can’t leave, not alone. But Angus…

“You won’t _touch_ him. That leaves a lot that you _can_ do. Don’t think I don’t know a shitty contract when I see one, my man.” Taako folds his arms. His mind is a mess of thoughts.

Kalen rolls his eyes. “You misunderstand me. He’ll come to no harm by any action of mine, any word of mine. Both of you, scot-free. After what you just let slip?” Kalen leans forward. Taako purses his lips. “One-time offer. Don’t think you could ask for a better one.”

Taako furrows his brow. He thinks of Angus, safe, and it seems too good to be true. “Why? Why just let me walk?”

“I have no real bone to pick with you, Taako, and to be honest….” He pauses, looking off into nothing. “I really only need one of you, for my purposes.” He looks back at Taako, something angry and almost haunted in his eyes. “And _she_ was never walking out of here alive in any case. So. Take it or leave it.” He leans back again.

For the first time, he weighs the offer as what it is: an option. One he could take. One that guarantees Angus’s safety after Taako had compromised it. One that gets him back home to everyone. To Kravitz, to Angus, to Magnus, to _Lup._

But fear slashes through him as he thinks of Lucretia, alone in her cell, doomed from the start to die. For a moment he feels tears, but he swallows and knots them into his throat with everything else tangled inside him. They can’t die in here. Neither of them can. And if they both stay here, they will.

Lucretia, she means the world to them, too. Her son, her lovers, her oldest friends. He sees their grief, _feels_ it in his core. And as he thinks of leaving her behind, he realizes that grief is not theirs, but his own.

There has to be a way.

“Deal,” Taako says, and Kalen grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We didn't have any prepared notes for this chapter, so I'd just like to take the opportunity to thank everybody for reading and for all the lovely comments. It means a lot to both of us!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carey and Merle find some stuff with some help from a new friend. Magnus gives fatherly advice. Lup and Kravitz meet a shitty bard.

As he, Carey, and their new  _ friend  _ walk lightly through an empty hall, Merle eyes the hulking half-orc in front of him with suspicion. He supposes their only other option is to kill him, and that would just get messy at this point, and otherwise they have nothing to go off of, so… This’ll have to do. But he doesn’t  _ like  _ it, that’s for sure. The whole thing kind of smells like a setup. 

“So bud, what’s your story?” asks Carey with a tone that matches Merle’s suspicion.

“We should probably stay quiet,” Kenneth says, peering into a room beside them to be sure it’s vacant. He’s still feeling uncertain about this whole thing, but it’s too late now.

_ “What’s your story?”  _ Merle whispers, somehow still loud. Carey elbows him.

Kenneth rolls his eyes. “Just a guy. Help’s not proof enough?” 

“How’re we supposed to know that you’re not bringing us to your jerk boss right now?” Merle asks as they wait behind a corner. Kenneth waves an arm in a gesture of  _ shut the fuck up.  _ He checks that the coast is clear, then motions for them to follow. 

Carey sidles up beside Kenneth and murmurs in his ear in orcish, “The dwarf’s annoying, sure, but he’s right. If I get even the least feeling something hinky’s going on….” She draws a claw across her throat. 

Kenneth blinks, receiving Carey’s message loud and clear. Orcish, he wonders as they walk silently. He hadn’t expected a dragonborn to know Orcish. But then again, what  _ had  _ he expected out of this day? Certainly not this. 

They move through the fortress like that in near-silence for a few minutes, Kenneth walking ahead, Carey sneaking along behind, Merle waddling at the rear, before Kenneth pauses at an intersection. He’s not really used to  _ planning _ things, to thinking ahead, but he thinks back to the first thing Kalen had them do when they caught Taako and Lucretia. He looks at Carey and Merle.

“Probably need their stuff?” he asks, gesturing like he’s waving a wand.

“Huh, yeah,” Merle says. “You know where it is?” 

“Storeroom, this way,” he says, and starts off again, a little faster. They’ve been lucky;  _ he’s _ been lucky. He doesn’t know how long it’ll hold. At least it’s not far.

But they don’t make it there before the inevitable: several sets of footsteps coming their way. Kenneth shoves them back against the wall, then crouches down.

“I think it’s the boss,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “Storeroom’s right there,” and he points at a door a dozen yards away. “If you go back to the T, take two lefts and they’ll be in there. I’ll try to help if I can, but—” He looks down the hall towards the sound of the footsteps. “Tell them I—” He shrugs. “I dunno.” Then he straightens up and heads towards the sound.

Carey darts to the storeroom door and starts picking the lock, and Merle keeps in the shadows as Kenneth turns a corner.

“Ah, Kenneth! Very good.” They hear a deep voice greet the half-orc. “I was looking for another guard; is everyone taking their afternoon nap?” There’s a tone of false jollity covering an obvious irritation, then a beat of silence, then, “This should be a good opportunity to make up for this morning, eh? Come with me.” 

The footsteps start up again, and come around the corner, and then Carey and Merle see Kenneth with a towering human who must be Kalen, a dwarf in ill-fitting armor, and Taako, his hands tied behind his back, gagged and wide-eyed. 

Carey tucks herself up into the doorway, and for half a second, one hand full of lockpicks, the other on the hilt of her favorite knife, considers just slipping behind them and slitting Kalen’s throat. 

They talked, her and Magnus, after he came back from the Chalice mission; up late with a six-pack of cider, as the moon base drifted over the remains of Raven’s Roost. He told her for the first time about his wife, about how much he’d loved her, how she was kind and funny and sweet and strong as hell. They’d laughed, then, about their similar tastes. Maybe Julia and Killian didn’t look anything alike, but they agreed that the two women had much the same spirit. She and Magnus had both gotten pretty drunk, both ended up crying. 

And this fucker— This fucker killed Julia, killed the man who’d been like a father to Magnus, killed all those people. This fucker deserves to die...and he’s just a few steps away. 

But there’s too many variables. The half-orc had said that both Taako and Lucretia were somewhere else entirely; they don’t know how many other guards are nearby; Taako’s still tied up. Too much can go wrong. So she holds her breath and lets them pass. She releases her grip on the knife, instead touching the half-heart necklace. 

Merle watches them pass as he sinks deep as he can into the shadows, taking in the sight of Taako bound there as he passes. He looks like shit. Shit that hasn’t slept and might be ready to collapse, but, Merle notes, shit that’s not injured. All his limbs where they ought to be, nothing bleeding, nothing bruised.

They pass and walk down the hall in the same direction their new ally had told them. “Let’s go on the farewell tour. What do you say?” Kalen shoves Taako forward, who makes a noise of protest behind his gag. “Oh yeah, guess you’re not sayin’ much of anything, huh?” 

As they reach the T and take the left, Merle breathes a silent sigh of relief, if it could really be called  _ relief.  _

Carey finishes with the lock and waves Merle over to the storeroom doorway.

“‘Farewell tour’?” she whispers with a raised brow. 

“Yeesh.” Merle whispers back as they enter the room. “I dunno, we should move quick.” He doesn’t have a good feeling about anything that’s going on.

There’s not a whole lot in the room, and it’s easy enough to spot their friends’ things, so within a few minutes they’re ready. Their packs had been emptied out onto the shelves, so Carey and Merle just shove things into bags as quickly as possible. Carey tucks Lucretia’s staff — plain as the old Bulwark Staff but not so tall — under her arm.

“You got all of his stuff?” she asks Merle.

“Think so. Kid’s got a lot of it,” he grumbles, double checking the shelves for anything left behind that’s gaudy enough to be Taako’s, but all that’s left is a shitty set of leather armor, same as the other guards wear. “...So, here goes nothing, I guess.” 

* * *

“Hey, kiddo,” Magnus says as Angus closes the door behind him, leaving Lup and Kravitz in the garden. “...what was all that about?” 

Angus doesn’t even know where to begin, or even what he can and can’t say. He sighs and heads for the kitchen. 

For once, Magnus hesitates, watching Angus recede silently down the hall. He glances around at the pictures that line the walls. It’s weird being alone with Angus in a house that’s not even theirs. And it’s weird that nobody will tell him what the hell is going on. From the floor, one of the cats— Earl Grey, the Russian blue— nudges his leg and he scoops it up.

He walks into the kitchen with the cat in his arms. “Are they bothering you? You know you can tell me, right?” 

Finally Angus says, “I kinda fucked up, Dad.” 

Magnus frowns. “How so? I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think.” 

Angus rubs his face with his hand: if anything it’s probably worse than he’d thought. He opens his mouth, sighs, and closes it again. He tries again, finally saying, “Dad, I—” He leans against the countertop. “I did, I got, I decided to do something….” He squints down at the wood grain. “I wanted to do something to help— You know, Taako and Mom? And I didn’t tell anybody, and it kinda—” He digs a fingernail into the countertop, frowning. He wants to tell Magnus everything, the whole story, because that’s how he got into this mess, but he can’t. He literally actually can’t. And it sucks.

“Oh,” Magnus says quietly. He lets Earl down onto the kitchen counter without Taako there to holler about it. He takes a seat at the island across from where Angus is still studying the counter intently. “We can’t… They’re doing their thing, you know? We have to let them... those two, they…” He laughs, shaking his head a little as he tries to find a way to say what he wants to say. “You know how they are. They’re gonna be alright. Totally cool. Just have to give them time.”

“What if they’re  _ not _ , though? What if—” He thinks about the little he saw of Hurn, the harshness of the landscape, the closed looks on the people there. The thinks about what he’s pieced together of what happened at Raven’s Roost, what Kalen was like. He sent them…. his dad’s best friend, all of his dad’s best friends, really, and his mom? And  _ Taako,  _ he did this to Taako? Who taught him mage hand? And to make macarons? Who treated him like he knew what he was doing even when he was a kid? He blinks, and the countertop swims behind a layer of tears. 

“Aw, hey, don’t—“ Magnus stands up, unsure whether he should round the island to comfort Angus. The cat mimics his anxiety, pacing between them on the island, butting her head against Angus's shoulder. “It’s just slow, but they’re…” he trails off, feeling inadequate. It’s hard to explain Taako and Lucretia to even people who know them well. 

“I didn’t tell them what I was doing and even if—” Tears hit the wooden surface. “Even if it’s okay they’re gonna be mad at me and  _ Aunt Lup _ is gonna be mad at me and I can’t— I fucked it up.”

“Listen, I’ve known all of them for, like…” He stops to count, trying to compare it to Angus’s lifespan. A century, obviously, but does he add the years apart? And then Angus is 18, if he's remembering correctly, which he probably isn't, and that doesn’t go evenly into that number anyway, and if Taako stopped learning math all that time ago, Magnus stopped learning it even before then. “...I’ve known them a long-ass time. And if I know anything about them, it’s that they can’t stay mad for  _ that  _ long. Especially not at you.” And as Angus opens his mouth, Magnus adds, “Not even Taako.”

“I guess.” He stands, wiping the tears with the back of his hand. He can't get the barely concealed fury on Lup's face out of his mind, the raw grief on Kravitz's. He'd felt so clever, coming back from Hurn with this secret knowledge, and bluffing Lucretia about how he got it. Now he just feels fear. “I wish— I wish there was something I could do.” 

“Sometimes…” Magnus puts a big hand on Angus’s shoulder, just a little taller than his now. He could almost laugh at how much Angus is like his mother at times. “We just have to trust that our friends know what they’re doing.” He thinks of the Arcaneum, all those years ago, watching Lucretia going back and forth with the others, none of them listening, none of them trusting. “And ask for help, if we think we wanged it that hard.” 

Holding the Umbrastaff in his hands, Angus had been so frightened and Taako had looked so stern. He hadn't understood yet, watching Taako snap it over his knee, but Taako had known exactly what to do. And Lucretia, his mom, she'd been so wrong, and so right, and the she and Taako, together, they were— they  _ are _ the smartest people he’s ever known. They have Carey with them, she knows what she’s doing, she promised him she did, and Merle— Merle is weird and surly and makes strange jokes but he has a good heart— they have him, too. At his feet, the hairless cat, Goblin, weaves between his legs. Something inside him eases a little.

“I will, I promise.”

Magnus pulls him into a sideways hug, squeezing his arm a little too tightly. When he lets go, he looks down the front hall through the windows and finds the garden empty. He frowns. “Aw, they left? I wanted to play board games.” 

“Work stuff, I guess.” He feels awkward, lying to Magnus, but there's not much he can do about that. “I'll play Yooker with you, if you want.” 

Magnus scoffs. “Old man's game. Don't you know how to play poker?”

“Sir, the last time we played poker you ended up owing me almost a hundred gp and all my chores for a week, and that was when I was 15.” 

Magnus frowns, then nods. He’d forgotten about that. “Go Fish?” 

They move to the small kitchen table; Angus gets a deck of cards and deals them out. He watches Magnus as he fans his cards out in his hand, smiling, unaware of the disaster at hand. Bringer of Death hops up onto the table, then into Angus’s lap. 

“Hey Creamsicle,” Angus says, petting the cat until he flops across Angus’s legs. Then with a weak smile, adds, “You still owe me those chores, you know.” 

Magnus laughs. “Not for long. You got any threes?”

“Go fish.” 

Angus purses his lips as Magnus draws a card from the pile between them. The game will be a good distraction: after all, there's nothing he can do now but trust, and wait for his family to come home.

* * *

A tear in space rips through the common room of the inn in Hurn, startling the few daytime denizens of the tavern. Two glowing balls of light appear, transforming into skeletons in long robes, carrying enormous scythes that gleam in the dim room. One of the figures holds a ball of fire in its bony hand. Around them, chairs are pushed back and knocked over in a hurried emptying of the room, leaving only an old woman with an impassive face behind the bar. 

Lup immediately closes in on the bar, flame flickering off of her hand, her eyes embers in her skull.

“T̶͈̹͇̩͚̲̒̇̑̓̚͠ͅH̨̙̦̰͚͎̲̰̺̅͑̏̐͆̕E̷̢͈̘̦͙̝̻͉͋̈̆̌̑̇͜͞͡ B̛̳̻͓̘̯͕̣̅̿̆̀́͟͢͞͡ͅḀ̛͇̻̺̱̥̯̯̊͗̅̍̑̓͋̈͠R̵͇͙̠̥̦͍͙̄̎̇̇̎̅͋̓̅͢D̶͚͙̱̱̠̼͖̲̈͒͆̽̒̇̈͆͟͜,” Lup rasps, using the same voice as Barry had to spook the boys, back when. 

She almost looks bored. “He’s on in an hour, I think,” she says. She looks at Lup and then Kravitz with one questioning eye. “Huh, third folks this month interested in Jimothy. What kinda trouble—” Then she shakes her head. “Ah, I’d rather not know. If you need him sooner, I think he lives in the underhill. Don’t know where, though.”

Kravitz looks to Lup. This is, in some ways, hers to lead as far as he’s concerned. (He’s glad to see her using some voices; he’ll have to suggest this one the next time they’re after a bounty, even if it’s not particularly effective against the old woman.) Lup, however, just turns with a flourish of smoke and rushes for the door. 

He approaches the woman, and for a second he sees the familiar fear in her eyes, but he merely says, “Thank ye kindly, ma’am” in his best fancy accent, then materializes a gold coin to set on the counter. “For your trouble.” She looks at it like it’s maybe cursed for just a second before sticking it into her chatelaine. Then he follows after Lup towards a path that heads into the caves underneath the town. 

As she reaches the middle of the halflings previously milling about the underhill, now gawking at the two reapers rushing into their daily routine, Lup shouts, “J̴̠͉͙̲̝͋́̑̈́͌͌̌̉͘̚͜I̳͍̦̮̰̿͂̈̏̅̊̔̍̏̕M͔͎̗̲̟̆̽̑͘͠Ơ̵̢̢͎͙͉̯̪̳̬̿͂͊͌̿͐̆͘Ṯ̷̮̣̘̣͈͉͒͛̋̈́̒̉̊H̭͈̬̫̞́̀͂̐̑́̐̕Y̸̢̢̮̤̺͉̊̌͋̾̇̎̃̀̾.” and it rattles all the surrounding wood and metal in the area. The silence that follows isn’t helpful to their cause.

“‘Scuse me, we do need to speak with a Jimothy right quick. Jimothy the bard?” adds Kravitz, twirling his scythe in his hand. 

From a small huddle of halflings, one is shoved forward and cowers, one hand half-raised. “Y-yes, that’s—” 

Lup jerks forward and opens her mouth to speak, but Kravitz puts an arm in front of her.

“We’re not here to take you to the Astral right yet, guv,” he says. “We’re here for information. You sent some travelers into the mountains, an’ we need to know where.”

Jimothy’s eyes go wide. “Why— what— I didn’t do anything— They’re, they’re not in trouble, are they?” He looks around nervously at the staring crowd, the other halflings backing away from him. “I drew ‘em a map up to the mining camp. Cousin Jerry, he’s supposed to help—” Again his wild eyes flit around at the others gathered there. 

Lup quickly makes a tear and produces a piece of paper and a pencil, right from her desk. She drops her reaper voice and shoves them into Jimothy’s hands. “Draw it and show us  _ now _ ,” she says hurriedly, holding fast to her aggression. With trembling hands he recreates the map, holding it out to her.

“I just wanted to help the seven birds, please don't—” he says barely above a whisper. “They’re— And the Director? Johann is my hero. I play his song—”

“Like shit,” yells someone in the crowd. 

Lup stops for a moment, seeing the hurt look on Jimothy’s face, combined with his terror of being confronted with two reapers. She sighs and in an instant she’s corporeal, easily recognizable as Lup and not just a bounty hunter for the actual Goddess of Death. Jimothy’s eyes widen further still at the sight of her. Someone in the crowd whispers her name, awestruck. She kneels down and takes the map from his shaky grasp and puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“You’re helping now, dear,” Lup says, looking from his huge, relieved eyes to the shitty map. It’s at least enough to know where to jump next. “I’ll send Johann your regards.” 

“Really?!” Jimothy squeaks, but Lup and Kravitz are already gone through a tear, leaving the smell of smoke and ozone behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to @bluecoloreddreams & @bluemoodblue (also our amazing beta reader for this fic, thanks again friend!) for contributing "Destroyer of Mice and Voles", which actually turned out to be a great description of epersonae's lovely [IRL version of Creamsicle](https://epersonae.tumblr.com/post/180139034820). Goblin and Earl Grey are entirely hops's invention.
> 
> Also, we’re getting started on some “liner notes”, a bit of meta about the whole multi-month process of writing, so if there’s specific things you want to know, hit us up on tumblr! epersonae is the same there, and hops is polyblaster, and we’d love to chat. (plus we just realized we haven’t posted our tumblr names before this?! :facepalm:)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia gets some bad news. Taako takes a chance. The band gets back together.

It’s quiet after Taako and Kalen are gone. For a few moments, Lucretia continues to occupy her mind with reviewing her wine collection and considering which one to give to Kravitz. Maybe more than one? This might be worth multiple bottles of wine. But her thoughts won’t stay where she wants them. Thinking of Kravitz taking care of Magnus means thinking of Magnus, and the last conversation they had. At least she told him that she loved him, if it has to be the last thing she ever....

“No,” she says out loud to the empty cell. She told Taako they weren’t going to let Magnus be alone, and she meant it, even if at this exact second she has no idea how that’s going to happen. Carey, Carey’s got this. Lucretia thinks back to when she was recruiting for the Bureau of Balance: Killian, always so serious and professional seeming so…shy, almost, surprisingly so. She’d found another recruit, a quick and dangerous dragonborn thief and assassin. _Gotta recruit this one, boss._ And Lucretia hadn’t picked up on Killian’s crush for ages; she was always dense that way, especially with her Bureau recruits. Still, they had been such a great team, first as regulators: smart, quick, tactical, and now as a married couple. (And Carey had become such a good friend to Magnus, which almost brings her thought back to their predicament, whether she’ll ever see them goofing off together again, and she can’t think like that.)

Lucretia stands and paces around her cell. Everything comes to this moment here: leaving Magnus in Raven’s Roost; recruiting misfits adrift for the Bureau; leaving her son with R.B.; finding him again against all odds; Wonderland, her own turn there and Magnus’s; so many little twists and turns of fate, the good and the bad. And waiting for Taako, hoping their bond— which she’d nearly destroyed— is rebuilt enough for, for what? For them both to survive.

She hears footsteps approaching and relief washes over her. Taako will be back, and perhaps her turn is next, but at least she will know he’s alright. The door swings open and slams against the wall and she moves to the door to look out into the hall. Taako stands there in front of Kalen, his wrists bound, and gagged now, too. His eyes dart around the room, meeting hers and looking terrified. Exhausted. Almost… apologetic.

Taako focuses as hard as he can, trying to somehow will the band to work despite the zone of magic suppression that prevents him from connecting to her thoughts. He’s shouting her name in his mind, looking at her as if he could tell her what he’d done without having to speak. He wishes his hands free so he could signal to her, the same movements from the old times, cobwebs dusted away from those memories this morning as they shakily coordinated against Kalen as he ate his breakfast. They motioned to each other from muscle memory just hours prior. It feels like lifetimes ago, now.

Kalen laughs, shakes his head a little, forces Taako ahead towards their cells. She sees the two guards behind them. One of them is a dwarf she doesn’t recognize, but the other— the other is the half-orc from before, Kenneth. She swallows and looks to Kalen instead of Taako, arranging herself with that same Madame Director determination and poise that she’d had to put on so many times before.

“Well, Lucretia,” Kalen starts, moving close to her cell. She sets her jaw. “We’re just on our way out, but I figured Taako here might wanna have his last goodbye. It’s only right, yeah?”

She can’t help but look at Taako: _that’s_ the apologetic expression, then. An offer he was finally willing to take. The connection of the band is still suppressed, his hands are tied, and he can’t speak. There’s no signal but the look in his eyes; after all these years, after everything between them, does she even know what that look really means? She thinks back to the morning, his fingers tapping on the table, the old signals. _Trust._

He tries to breathe as he stares, unable to look anywhere else but her eyes. He just keeps thinking into the dead connection and hopes for an opening, for _anything_ that would let her hear him, but there’s nothing. _I had to, I’m sorry, I’m coming back,_ he repeats over and over. _I’m coming back I’m coming back I’m coming back. I promise._ And her name, it repeats in his mind over and over, sets his teeth on the gag, fills his eyes with unwitting tears.

She looks at Kalen again, then back to Taako, her face the diplomat’s mask as she speaks. “Goodbye, Taako. We’ll have tea again soon.” That moment when the two of them sat in the pocket spa, the scent of the spice tea rising between them, it feels so long ago: their tears subsiding, his hand on her knee. “Friend?” she’d asked then, and she says it now, barely above a whisper. She’s not even sure he can hear her.

Taako’s nostrils flare, his breath audible as it grows faster. A tear trails down his face and is soaked up by the gag. He blinks the rest away. Calling for her still, his heartbeat and his thoughts are as one, pounding in his ears, coursing through every last inch of him. _It’s okay, it’s okay, trust me, trust me, please._

Kalen smirks, then pushes Taako forward. As they pass her, she catches Kenneth’s eye. There’s something uneasy in his expression, a hesitance in his step. His eyes flick from Taako to Kalen to her so quickly she almost doesn’t notice. But he looks at her with that little furrow in his brow and he looks away, and maybe…. Maybe it’s something.

The four of them pass, and for another fleeting moment she’s alone as the footsteps recede. But quickly a single set of footsteps return: Kalen, alone, standing in front of her cell with his arms crossed. At first he just stares at her with that little half-smile.

“You know he sold you out to save your kid, how wild is that?” he says, as if he were describing the weather. She raises an eyebrow, not trusting her voice. Kalen continues, “Did you really think he’d stick around here just to follow you down to the end? After what you did? C’mon.”

“I believe he’d do anything for—” She cuts herself off before saying Angus’s name. A little hope starts to bloom in her chest. He’s found a way out. If he’s found a way out, then he can get help, then there’s a way they’ll make it through. “The boy is more to him than I am, I know that.”

“That you do, don’t you.” Kalen leans forward, peering into her cell. “Once I brought him into the mix, it wasn’t even a question, really. Took that deal in a heartbeat. Told him he’d just walk free, how about that?”

She takes a deep breath, focuses on the expression on Taako’s face, focuses on that tiny spark of hope.

“I’ve learned over a very long life never to underestimate Taako.”

“Joke's on him, though.”

Her hands clench into fists; she says nothing. Kalen’s eyes practically twinkle as he smiles.

“I know what you’re thinking: maybe he’ll get out of here and let them know, have the calvary come running for you. Maybe Magnus will hear, and this time he won’t miss the fun.” Kalen says, as casual as inviting Magnus for dinner. “Taako took a gamble for the kid, and unfortunately for him, he’s just _bad_ at math.” And Kalen waves carelessly in the direction of the door Taako had left through. “He’ll be dead before his stone can pick up a signal.”

Her hands go cold and she can feel her heartbeat in her ears, but she keeps her face perfectly still, just letting a tiny “oh” escape her.

“You thought— Oh, you _did_ think, didn’t you?” He starts laughing and shakes his head.. “Oh, oh, Lucretia. That’s…. I thought you were more pragmatic than that.” He stares at her as his laughter dies down, his smile lingering, then slowly falling from his face. “You tell me where Magnus is, though, and after this, nobody else has to die. Simple as that.”

She scoffs. “You literally just told me that you lied to Taako’s face. I might as well go kill the boy myself if I tell you anything else.”

“The only thing I’m looking for is Magnus. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get it out of him, but you…” He leans so close to the barred window that she can feel his breath on her face, but she doesn’t back down. “I know I can get it out of you.”

She scoffs again, but she’s terrified that he’s right. When she closes her eyes, it’s not Taako’s face that she sees, or Angus’s, or Magnus’s, but the wizard Cam, abandoned to suffer in Wonderland. If ever she thinks she’s not capable of making a ruthless calculation about who to save, the memory of Cam is there to remind her of who she’s been. From what Merle and Magnus had told her, he was so ruined that death had been a release. Her choices had led to that.

“You don’t think so?” he says. “Look at me.” She opens her eyes; his are dark, piercing. The laughter has gone out of them. “The sooner you give me what I want, the sooner this will just be _over._ And what a relief that would be, huh?” He turns to walk away, then pauses without looking at her. “Madame Director.”

As soon as she hears the door close, she slumps to the floor, letting the tears fall. She’s failed. After everything, a decade on her own, her plans changing under her over and over again, facing her family without their memories, then facing them _with_ their memories, and saving the world? And then, the long slow work of rebuilding a life after, trying endlessly for the joy she thought she’d lost forever. And now… to die here, alone, like this…

She’d thought— she’d told Merle if this is how she died, then perhaps that would be alright. Perhaps it would be a worthwhile death.

But she finds, here, alone, that she’s not ready. It’s not alright, not any more than it was that year she spent alone on the run. They’ll live on without her. In some ways it’s not at all like the year of the judges; they don’t need her to survive the way they did then.

But as she breathes the dry dusty air of the fortress, the sort of dryness that still decades later reminds her of waking alone in the Starblaster, trying to figure out where to go next, how to get through one more day, how to stay ahead just a little longer— she finds that she wants it, more than anything, to see what happens next. It seems impossible.

But she’s survived the impossible before.

* * *

It’s silent in the halls of the fortress, save for the sound of their footsteps on the stone below and the occasional drifting of voices elsewhere. Taako swallows. There’s no use in losing composure now. He needs to think of something, and quickly. Without his magic and without his words, though, there’s not much he can do. He feels Kenneth’s hand as it grips his shoulder, guiding him around the corner, and all Taako can do is wish that he’d done _more._ Laid it on thicker, been a little stronger or smarter about their approach. He bites down hard on the gag, willing himself to focus. He has to focus. He has to do this.

He tries to remember what Magnus had taught him, what to do without weapons or magic, how to fight with nothing but his body. He tests his restraints and promptly decides that’s not an option either. It’s not like he’d been _in practice_ for that shit anyway. Aside from the rare adventuring excursion, Taako hasn’t seen combat on a consistent basis since they saved the world.

He marches forward down another unfamiliar hall, just, nothing like the map, nothing recognizable to speak of. Even if he were to escape right now, where would he go?

He plays through every option imaginable in his mind. Making it outside and running for Hurn, getting a signal with his stone, maybe that would be his best bet; maybe Kravitz or Lup ( _Lup, oh gods, Lup,_ he thinks; she doesn’t know about any of this, but there would be time later, if they made it out) could fix this, at least get Lucretia out, he just has to call—

His train of thought comes to a screeching halt, so much so that he stumbles and Kenneth grabs his shoulder once more, holding him upright. He doesn’t have his stone. Or his wand. Or anything. And the fact that Kalen made no mention of it at all…

They’re just going to kill him. All this, it’s just to get him out of the way on Kalen’s warpath to Magnus.

He clenches his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt. There has to be a way. There _has_ to be a way.

The dwarf says, “Think Frank’ll give us shit if we go grab some beer out of the breakroom after this? I’m still thirsty.”

Kenneth stammers, “Uh, yeah, um, I guess probably. He was— he’s kind of a hardass about that shit. Maybe, uh, maybe after chow?”

The dwarf grunts. “That’s bullshit, is what that is. Keg’s right there.”

Kenneth makes a noncommittal noise.

Taako stares straight ahead, taking in the exchange. Kenneth didn’t speak enough earlier for Taako to know his normal manner of speech, but the unease in his voice seems like a tell, enough that maybe, maybe there’s something to follow there; an opening, should he be able to squeeze through and make it.

He’s got a couple minutes and hardly any options at all; all he has is his legs, his mind, and the band. If they’re going to kill him anyway, he might as well give it one last shot.

 _“Hey, Ken doll. Hey. It’s cha’boy,”_ Taako thinks, opening a link to Kenneth’s mind. _“Remember earlier, wh—”_

“What—” Kenneth says aloud, startled.

_“Hey! Be cool, my dude. Quiet, yeah? Let’s talk.”_

“The keg, that’s what. It’s shitty beer, but beer is beer.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” _“What the hell?”_

_“Don’t worry about it, listen, you heard what I said, right? That this guy’s fucking tapped? What’d he tell you, to walk me out and kill me? At least give me my stuff back first, jeezy.”_

Kenneth’s hand on his shoulder tightened. _“Your friends, they’re getting your stuff. Merle Highchurch, and the dragonborn lady?”_ He glances at the dwarf. _“I think I can take_ him _, he’s kinda lazy, been skipping training a lot lately.”_

Taako absolutely reels. _“Wait you— Carey and Merle are here? And you’re— you—”_ He stops short without thinking, and Kenneth almost collides with him.

“Ah, dammit,” says the dwarf. “Can we just get this shit over with? We really have to wait until we get outside?”

_“Yeah, I’m— Yeah. Now can we do this before Dorb decides he really wants to kill you early?”_

Taako is exhilarated and speechless, every inch of him buzzing with newfound anticipation. There’s a chance, they have a chance, and he’ll be damned if he fucks it up. _“You’re the one with free hands, my man. Let’s do it to it.”_

With an almost uncanny speed and precision, Kenneth just flat-out punches the dwarf in the side of the head, sending him reeling against the wall and slumping to the ground.

“What the fuck, Kenneth,” Dorb says. Kenneth punches him a second time and blood runs down his face. He punches back, landing a solid blow on Kenneth’s thigh. Taako tries to run in and help, but Kenneth is just on top of Dorb, leaving him no room, not that that’s really Taako’s gig anyway. Another solid punch from Kenneth, and Dorb slumps to the floor, breathing and barely conscious.

“We gotta get you back,” Kenneth says. Taako purposefully and loudly makes noises into the gag until Kenneth reaches to untie it from the back of his head. “Right, sorry.”

Taako takes a gulp of unobstructed air, then celebrates as quietly as he can. “Oh _hell_ yes, let’s do this,” he says, waiting impatiently for Kenneth to untie him. When he’s free, he shakes out his arms and stretches his hands. Kenneth moves to head down the hall and Taako stops him with a “Woah, woah.”

Kenneth turns around, a questioning look on his face. Taako shakes his head and holds his hand out for the rope and gag that’d previously been his.

“This dude gets up and goes running? We’re toast.” Taako crouches down and slips the gag into the dwarf’s open mouth, then makes quick work of tying his limp arms together behind his back. “Devil’s in the details, so we gotta play it with style, because boy I would _so_ love to not die after the day I’ve had.”

Taako stands and meets Kenneth’s eyes.He’s clearly trying to mask his nerves, but Taako can see his anxiety there anyway.

“The kid? He’s gonna be— We’ll get you—” Kenneth tries to start. Taako waves a hand, letting him off the hook of his sincerity, and starts heading back the way they came beside him.

Taako’s overwhelmed with relief, but worried for all that might go wrong. But: there’s a chance. There’s a way.

“Thank you,” Taako says, and they rush for the dungeon.

* * *

Carey puts her ear to the storeroom door; after a minute, a single set of footsteps, heavy and deliberate, pass and continue away. She waits another beat to see if anyone else is coming.

“I think we’re clear,” she says.

Merle shrugs Taako’s pack back onto his shoulder from where it’d started to slip off. He’s carrying too many things to feel good about sneaking around, but if they’re this close they don’t exactly have other options. “Let’s do it, I guess,” says Merle, walking towards the door to meet her. “You good?”

“I am if you are.” She looks down at him with the two packs; they’re not going to be sneaky at all. “Hey bud, let me head out first, and then if it’s cool I’ll wave you forward?” She steps out; it’s empty, and she lets out a sigh of relief before signaling to him. He waddles out of the room, weighed down with all the stuff. The two of them slowly make their way through the fortress, Merle pausing at doorways while Carey slips ahead. There’s a long pause while a couple of guards hang out at the intersection chit-chatting, but finally they move along, heading for dinner apparently.

The main door to the dungeon isn’t locked at all, and Carey spends a long time just listening at it to make sure there aren’t any guards, it sounds empty but she’s not quite sure. She looks at Merle and nods, taking out her knives.

They find themselves in a long hall lined with doors. Looks like absolutely no one is there.

“Boss?” she says nervously. She’s answered by a long exhale of breath.

“Carey?” says Lucretia.

“We gotcha,” she says and moves to the door, knives swapped out for lockpicks. With a sharp look at Merle she says, “Don’t even think about taking that thing out of your bag.”

“Hey, lesson learned. But he got the door open, didn’t he?” Merle chuckles as Carey goes to work on the lock. “How’re you doin’, ‘Cretia?”

“I’ve had better days, Merle.” Her laugh is heavy with recent tears. She takes a deep breath. “But we need to hurry. Taako—” The last conversation with Kalen sits heavy in her gut. “He’s having Taako killed, sent him with two guards, I think you can—” The door pops open and she sees Carey, her staff still tucked under one arm, Merle piled down with packs, and tears spring to her eyes. “We have to get him now,” she says, reaching for her staff.

“Take a second, sister,” Merle says, peering up at her with his good eye. He pulls her in for a hug despite the awkward difference in their height. “Glad you’re in one piece.”

“Hey, was one of the guards a half-orc with kind of a scar, around here?” asks Carey, gesturing at her face. “‘Cause he might’ve, well, he might be helping?”

Lucretia raises an eyebrow. “Yes, a guard we tried to talk to earlier, seemed like maybe he might be sympathetic.”

“Cool, cool,” says Carey. “Let’s go get ‘em.” She hands Lucretia her staff and starts for the far door.

“You kinda look like shit.” Merle says, looking her up and down as they head towards the exit. Her eyes dart around the room, calculating, gears churning. She looks like hell, almost as bad as Taako did as he passed in the hallway. She’s dirty, exhausted, scared. The dark circles under her bloodshot eyes tell it all, and it’s not a good story. “You gonna be alright?”

She laughs; there's not much humor in it. Her mouth sets in a hard line. “I will be.”

“That's the spirit,” says Carey. Then they hear footsteps approaching: Carey draws her knives, Lucretia readies her staff; Merle puts a hand on the Extreme Teen Bible.

Someone on the other side of the door clears their throat and says, “Uh, ‘bout time for supper, if anyone’s still posted up.”

Lucretia, Merle, and Carey freeze, all looking to each other for their next move. Merle rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to speak. Lucretia cringes before the sound even leaves his mouth.

“You go on ahead, just, making sure there’s no, uh, trouble,” Merle says, his voice low and serious and, miraculously, not distorted by a bad accent.

Carey draws a sharp breath. She looks at the others and mouths, _Is that our guy?_

Lucretia sighs, readies a spell, and opens the door. Behind it, Kenneth has his sword drawn, standing in front of Taako like a living barricade.

“Oh thank Istus,” she breathes.

As soon as Taako’s eyes meet hers, he flies past Kenneth and throws his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he says into her shoulder, muffled by her robe. She sways slightly, speechless, tears in her eyes. As quickly as he’d ran to her, he pulls away. “Told you I wasn’t going anywhere. Now let’s fucking kill this dickweed.”

She wipes her face; her smile now is more open, more genuine.

“Yes, let’s.” She looks at Kenneth. “Thank you,” she says. “I can’t begin to express— You needn’t come with us, if you would rather leave…”

He shrugs. “Seems like I could, you know....” He gives her a strangely shy smile. “I know my way around, and not like I’m gonna have a job after this anyway.”

Carey gives Lucretia a look. “We’ll talk to Kils?” she says. Lucretia nods.

Taako glances at the two as they exchange a look. “I offer competitive wages,” he says, nudging Kenneth in the ribs.

“Alright, is this the fantasy career fair or can we get this show on the road?” Merle says, folding his arms.

Kenneth looks abashed and starts to say something, but Lucretia just puts a hand on his arm. “Don’t mind Merle. He’s kinder than he looks. Or sounds. Or acts most of the time. He’s just...impatient.”

“This has been a long time coming,” says Carey. She touches her necklace.

Taako motions towards the hall. “Shall we?”

“After you,” says Lucretia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When in doubt, steal a random dwarven name from the graphic novel. (epersonae had just read it when we wrote this chapter.) That punch, by the way, from Kenneth? Natural 20 on the dice roll, baybeeeeee.
> 
> (We're still taking questions for liner notes & process stuff, hit us up on tumblr at epersonae & polyblaster, respectively.)
> 
>  
> 
> _Next update will most likely be Friday. Have a good week, and happy turkey day to our fellow Americans._


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reapers try to figure out where they’re going. Another plan is made, and a sword is loaned out.

The map isn’t the worst, but it’s not very good either, not when Kravitz is trying to tear a hole in the fabric of space hoping to land at an exact location. His Queen’s gift for tracking applies to necromancers and other criminals against death in the book of bounties, not his beloved. So rather than the mining camp on Jimothy’s map, his scythe opens them onto the edge of a clearing. Beside them is the poorly-hidden corpse of an ogre, a streak of its own blood on its vest. Across the clearing, the remnants of an enormous torn-open spiderweb. Between, the scuffs of boot prints and spider tracks, the mark of a staff tapped against the ground.

“They must have been here,” Lup says, almost to herself. She looks up the path higher into the mountains and then down the other way, towards the smell of woodsmoke and chemicals that must be the mining camp. When they reach the encampment, they’re overwhelmed by the noise of machinery and the claustrophobic feel of too many folks too close together. 

“Perhaps we try  _ not _ going in all scythes and fireballs?” asks Kravitz as they approach. He’s perhaps a little uncomfortable using his power so dramatically away from his Lady’s work. “The bard appears to have been well-intentioned, perhaps it is so with his cousin?” 

Lup huffs. “Fine. Yeah, probably.” 

Of course, even without skeletons and feathered cloaks and flames, the appearance of two well-dressed strangers attracts all eyes, especially as they come in from what is obviously the wrong direction.

“You lost?” says a half-elf leaning on a spear. Then he straightens up and points it at them, more specifically at Lup. “You’re— What are  _ you _ doing here?” Others in armor start towards them, picking up a variety of poorly maintained weaponry. The miners and laborers in the huts and tents, at the edges of the caves mostly back out of sight, though a few pick up mining tools. At one tent, a halfling with sweat dripping down his face looks out and then ducks back in. 

Lup makes a point to throw Kravitz a look; showing up  _ all scythes and fireballs  _ probably would have been the better option this time. She holds up one hand in the direction of the weapons turned on them. “Not lost at all, dear. We’re looking for Jerry, he’s a friend of a friend,” Lup says casually. “About ‘yay’ high?” she motions at halfling height by her leg. 

There’s a scuffling sound at the back of a tent at about the same time that the guards start to rush towards Lup and Kravitz. He looks to her with a little shrug by way of an apology. 

“That’s him, isn’t it?” he asks with a sigh as he nods towards the tent. “I can go snag him if you have these fellows under control.” His form dissolves into a ball of light, then a pile of rocks forms into a towering shape to block the fleeing halfling. 

Those still holding weapons and mining tools close in on Lup, standing still with her one hand raised. “Can’t we talk about this?” she asks, a wicked glint in her eye. She raises her other hand and immediately a massive wall of fire rises with a roar, shaped to precisely strike everyone carrying a weapon. Within a few moments, many of the group lay still, unconscious and burned on the ground, others brought to their knees in injury. 

“Hullo there,” says Kravitz, his voice in the stone golem rougher and deeper. “Jerry, is it?” The halfling is frozen in place, and Kravitz lifts him easily with stone fingers and walks him over to Lup. “I think she wants a word with you,” he says, stepping through the wall of flame and dropping the halfling in front of her. 

Lup crouches down so she’s nose-to-nose with him. “Hi there, Jerry,” she says calmly, the whole place up in flames around them. He stares at her, his jaw clamped tightly shut, eyes wide with terror. Still, he remains standing. “I need you to tell me where the hell you sent my brother.” 

“It was— There was two humans? In disguise? I didn't know which of ‘em it was, but the north trail, goes up to his fortress. I just— Was supposed to be easy money. Gave em the directions like I was supposed to, that's it. Was supposed to just be that one, that Kalen's got a grudge against or whatever, and then the one messed with everybody's heads.” He looks resigned. 

Lup feels fire before she becomes it, her attempt at corporeal civility cut short by the halfling’s confession. In an instant flare of fire and smoke she’s a reaper once more, eyes aflame as she stares down at Jerry. The few miners left conscious cry out in surprise. 

“You made quite a mistake, Jerry,” says Kravitz. His scythe is in his hands before he's even thought of it, and the shining edge is at the back of Jerry's neck. It's not his place to reap this poor creature, but his fingers itch to do  _ something.  _ “A map for us, and then better choices in the future.” 

When Jerry doesn’t move, the flames licking off of Lup’s hands flare out, a little hotter, a little more electric with every second that passes.  _ “Now!”  _ she commands, within an inch of going back into her full terrifying form, voice and all. 

“I just drew some shit on a map they got from my cousin,” he says, muttering “that fucking sap” under his breath. 

“Then perhaps you can do us the same,” says Kravitz. “You've got the map, luv,” and he nods at Lup's flaming fingertips. 

Lup extinguishes herself and immediately flicks her scythe into existence with her free hand, using the other to produce the map from her robes. As soon as the paper is in the halfling’s hands, she holds her blade at his neck.

“Ķ̵̖̬̪͉̙̠̭̖̇̌̑͐̈́̾̾A̢̟̪̤̥̻̜̪̥̖͛̌̂͆̊͞͡L̡̲̱̞̋̿̔͋̕̕͜͞͝ͅȨ̷̣̤̼͔̄̆̈́͋̓̊̉͘͝Ň̴̠̣̙̘̫̝̥̖̑̓,” she rasps, her voice dark and nearly unrecognizable. She drops her voice to a hiss.  _ “I know  _ you know who he is. So show us  _ where  _ he is,  _ exactly where  _ he is, and maybe I let you live.” 

With fumbling hands he adds pencil marks to Jimothy's map. “I should, I should tell you, this isn't exactly the route I gave them. I was told— He, not Kalen, one of his people, said to send them into where the ogres go. Dunno why, maybe figured they'd get taken out? But this is the real way, I swear.” A trickle of blood from Kravitz's scythe rolls down the back of Jerry's neck. 

Lup snatches the map from Jerry’s hands and looks at it, her eyes darting to meet Kravitz’s. “If this is  _ wrong?  _ You won’t leave these mountains with your life.” She releases her scythe from its place at the halfling’s neck and he gasps in relief, still looking petrified between the two reapers. On the ground all around them, miners moan as they come to, burnt but hanging onto life. 

Kravitz, too, withdraws his scythe. Taako was alive here, he assumes: a disguise seems more like him or Lucretia than the others. Was alive where they found the body of the ogre, presumably. “We're almost there,” he says softly to Lup. 

Then he glances around them, as the fires spread, and pitches his voice loud enough for the whole encampment, even into the mines. 

“Everyone head to Hurn right quick, and give praise to the Raven Queen that your lives have been spared.” Then a flourish of his scythe and he holds out a hand for Lup to step into the portal. 

She takes a deep, determined breath and takes his hand. “Let’s go.” 

* * *

Taako walks slowly out of the dungeon, taking care to step lightly before approaching the corner to the main passage of the fortress. He looks both ways, then motions the rest of them forward. When they reach him, he turns to them over his shoulder and whispers, “I really have no fucking idea where we’re going so like, Ken? If you wanna take the reins here, feel free.” 

Kenneth looks up and down the halls, then at the four of them. It feels a little unreal, both being around  _ them _ , he knows everything about their journey but not really anything of them now, and having switched sides? Is he really doing that? He looks into Taako’s eyes, the dark shadows under them, and yes, he’s switched sides.

“Should be about dinner time, we’ll probably find him in the hall, you’ve been there. Probably a couple of guys.” He looks at Carey and Merle. “No idea if anyone’s seen what’s up with the breakroom, guess there’d be some commotion? So...yeah. I can lead you guys there if you want.”

They backtrack the way they’d come so recently, past the storeroom, past Kalen’s office, then through the winding passages of the fortress. Kenneth takes them through weird side passages in the hopes of avoiding alerting anyone.

But there’s always someone around, and he rounds a corner and bumps into two guards he doesn’t know very well: a tiefling man, tail twitching nervously, and a half-elf woman with a permanent sour expression. She immediately launches into Kenneth with, “Are you my relief? Terry was supposed to be here already, he still down in the breakroom telling stories about the ‘good old days’? Blah blah blah Raven’s Roost blah blah blah. I get it, dude, you were there way back when; good for you. Still need you to do your fucking job now though. Been stuck out here all afternoon, and I’d like my dinner, please and thank you.”

“Jeez, Susan,” says the tiefling. “Not like you’ve ever done anything interesting. Let the old man tell his stories.”

Kenneth glances backwards. Carey, deep in the shadows, slides one of her blades out of its sheath; her other hand holds back Merle. 

But Lucretia is lost in her thoughts, reviewing her spells, almost giddy with anticipation, and she keeps walking around the corner. Taako tries thinking into the band, saying her name to get her attention to no avail, cringing. She almost jumps out of her skin when she realizes she’s walked into the room with the guards.

“Uh, I’m, uh, taking the prisoner….” starts Kenneth. 

The tiefling’s eyebrows fly up. “Untied?  _ With her staff?  _ What the—”

Lucretia points her staff at both of the guards: with a quick casting of Hold Person, both are frozen in place. 

Carey enters twirling a knife in her hand. “Nice recovery, boss.” She nods at Kenneth. “Help me tie up these guys ‘fore this wears off?” It’s a bit ad-hoc, since there’s no rope, but Susan’s bandanna makes a decent gag, and Carey sacrifices her camp blanket, ripping it into strips of cloth to finish the job. Kenneth leans down to grab Susan’s shortsword, since he’s pretty sure his pike is still in the breakroom with the pile of corpses. Right now everything feels like a blur. 

“Earth to Lucretia,” Taako says, the irritation in his voice somehow overshadowed by the sliver of concern within it. “We good?”

She gives a wry chuckle. “I think so, sorry I got a little carried away thinking ahead, lost track of the now.” She looks to Kenneth, hefting the sword, a little bit small for him. “Are we close?”

“Yeah, uh…. Around that corner, down the back hall by the kitchen, and yeah.” 

“Are we just runnin’ in all wands-a-blazing?” Merle asks, squinting with his one eye down the passage. 

Lucretia looks at the other four: Taako with the KrebStar held loosely in one hand, Carey bouncing on her heels, Merle’s skeptical expression, and the young half-orc, the twinge of doubt still in his eyes.

“Perhaps a little planning is in order?” she says. Looking to Kenneth, she asks, “How many do you think will be in there?”

He looks surprised to be asked; he’s a little bit surprised to be so quickly included. “About the same as this morning, probably?”

Lucretia clears her throat. “Carey, we’re going to need you to — he’s got a wand with some sort of magic suppression powers.”

“Yeah, the boss— I mean, Kalen’s real big on those wands,” adds Kenneth.

“You’ll want to go for that first,” she says. 

Carey nods. “If I get a shot, should I….” 

Lucretia takes a deep breath. 

“You should take it, and make it fuckin’ count,” Taako says, a venomous edge to his voice. “As long as we leave here alive, and he doesn’t.” 

“What he said,” adds Merle. “Ain’t got to stick the knives ourselves to do our duty.”

“Sounds great,” says Carey. 

Taako frowns. “Okay, but everyone else is chowing down, right? Like, in the mess hall? AKA, one of his goons runs out and we have the whole fortress in our biz…”

“Stone Shape?” asks Lucretia. “Just seal it shut for us? It’s just a hallway to go in, right?”

“There’s a second door,” says Kenneth, “but I guess I can keep an eye on that.”

“Okay, cool, cool,” Taako murmurs, thinking, shuffling through every possible way this could go wrong. But they’re too close to turn back, and god, he just wants Kalen fucking dead. “Cool.” 

“If you and Merle stick close, I can put up a shield that should block the effect of those wands until Carey can do her thing,” Lucretia says. She looks at Merle, eyes narrowed, and then with a glint of dark humor in her eyes, she smiles. “Does that Insect Plague thing actually do damage or is it just a distraction?” 

Merle narrows his eyes, mirroring her expression. “I once killed a man with Insect Plague.”

“No you didn’t,” Taako says. 

“But I could have.” 

“Good enough,” says Lucretia. “How about you lead off with that? Throw them off their game a little. Remember, we just need to get the guards out of the way. Focus on the real target here.” 

“Or we could just light them all the fuck up,” Taako says thoughtfully, tapping a finger on his chin with mild impatience. 

She laughs. “That we could. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You said we didn’t need a license to kill,” adds Merle. “I mean, I know you ain’t our boss no more, but that’s still the deal, yeah?”

Kenneth looks down at the floor, looks at the sword in his hand,  _ doesn’t _ look at the others. Maybe he’s been on the wrong side all this time, but he doesn’t feel great. He catches the dragonborn’s eyes, and she gives him a small nod.

“Hey, guys? I know we’re all—” Carey waves a knife. “Ready to go, yeah? But like, they’re probably not all supervillains or whatever. So like boss says, eyes on the prize.” 

“Fine, we cool it on the murder for now.” Taako gives a small nod, getting the hint, looking at Kenneth’s sword instead of his face. “That’s what we’re working with here?” 

Kenneth shrugs, turning the blade over in his hand. “It’ll do.” 

“Oh hell naw, not if you’re rolling with us, buddy. One sec.” He rummages around in the pack on Merle’s back until he finds the sapphire rolling around at the bottom, then hands it to Kenneth. “If you wanna do the honors, you just have to crush that, I’d do it but, you know, seems like you’ve got more capable hands.” Taako grins. 

“...Alright?” Kenneth says, and he squeezes his hand shut and nothing happens. “Sorry, just gotta—” He turns and crushes the sapphire between his hand and the stone wall. Immediately, the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom materializes in his hand and his eyes triple in size. 

“Now we’re talkin’,” Taako says, satisfied. “It’s a little heavy, but you got this.” 

“Mags isn’t gonna be looking for that, is he?” asks Carey at the same time that Kenneth asks “What  _ is  _ this?” 

“If Mags is looking for it, he has more ‘splaining to do than  _ I do  _ when we get back. Also it’s  _ mine?  _ Lest we forget.” He turns to Kenneth. “And it’s a king? Okay, yeah, I know it’s a lot to take in but try to keep up. Now, can we  _ go?”  _ Taako asks the group, and they all fall into step together and head down the passage.

* * *

Lup and Kravitz peek out of a tear into a dry forest, a rough tumbledown cliff overlooking a complex of buildings. They’re far away, but now they know the exact location of the place, and Kravitz can sense Taako’s presence within the main building. They can get inside. 

“There,” Kravitz says, but before he’s even done speaking, Lup has opened another tear to a room in the fortress. It looks like it was once a place where people gathered to relax, but now the only occupants are a single dead body (knife wounds, burns, and the impact of a magical bolt) and a pile of ash that might have been a couple more. They can sense the remnants of arcane energy, the blessings of Pan in the havoc that’s been wreaked here very recently.

“Merle,” says Lup, poking at the ash with the butt of her scythe. 

Kravitz is focused on locating Taako, trying to sense his energy and movement among all the other living beings in this pile of stone. He points at a wall just as the door opens behind them.

“I got guard duty after dinner, but at least now it’s only gonna be the one of—” says a bored and weary voice, then a pause followed by, “--the fuck?!”

The screaming of mortals terrified for their souls is not unfamiliar, but not necessarily what Kravitz had expected or intended today. Lup flies towards them immediately and holds her scythe to their throats. 

“Who ya  _ guarding? _ ” she asks, eyes aflame, having a terrible feeling about the answer. Both of them just continue screaming. Lup clenches her fists in frustration and her hands burst to flame. Alright, I’ll ask again— W̹̣̼̠̬̳̯̄͌̓̇͛̄̂̈́͡H͔͓͔̩͙͎͚̪̊͋̀̎͘͞Ǫ̢̭̗͇̤̣̲͎̈́̅͂͐̅ Ý̵̢̛̤̤̦̜̻͉͚̓̄͐̃͘͡A̵̼̜̥͕̜͂̾͗̈̉̍̆̑̕͝ G̶̨͇̥̦͇͍͇̊̓̉̏͂̓͐̋̕͟͝ͅƯ̤͓̦̂̾̃̐̆̔͘͜͜͝Ḁ͙̤͓͐̉́̈́̾͜Ř̷̪̟̯̺̗̭̙̈̊͘͢͝͝D͚̦̱͚̑̾̎͛́̂̇̆͒͟͜Ī̴̧̟̹̺̙͍̤̎̈͐͛̈́̕̕͟͜N̴̨̛̩̙̯͕͆̓̿͛̃̈́̃̍͟G̴̰̝̭̪̺͍̠̃̎͒́̾̆̚?” 

“P-p-please don’t—“ 

Kravitz pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s not like he isn’t worried about Taako too, but— “Lup, dear, he’s this way.” He looks at the guards and sighs. “Don’t do necromancy, fellas.” And then a long gesture with his scythe opens a portal, hopefully to Taako this time.

As they step through, the guards scramble out the door, presumably to Kalen, or to reinforcements. Lup grits her teeth, curses, and hopes for her brother on the other side. The tear closes behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’d already written this chapter when the Atlanta liveshow came out, so THANKS GRIFFIN for not taking away the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom. This would have been so annoying to rewrite completely, instead of just tweaking a couple of sentences.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things pop off. The reapers find what they’re looking for. An ending, finally.

The passageway ends in a pair of doors, behind which lies their fate. Lucretia pauses, readying a Globe of Invulnerability. Somehow she still feels deeply and intensely vulnerable. 

“If anyone has any last words, or wants to, y’know, bail…” Taako says quietly, walking backwards at the ready to cast Stone Shape and seal the passageway shut. He glances at Kenneth. “Last chance.” 

_ “Are you doing alright?”  _ she asks, trying the connection of the band, while Carey just gives a wicked smile and draws her knives, Kenneth nervously plays with the pommel of the sword, and Merle takes out his Extreme Teen Bible. 

_ “Yeah,”  _ Taako answers. He casts and the stone walls of the hallway come together gracefully, sealing them in with a solid singular wall, only the door between them and Kalen.  _ “Let’s fucking do this thing.”  _

“Wow,” whispers Kenneth.

“Indeed,” says Lucretia, then with a tap of her staff, a translucent bubble forms around her, Taako, and Merle. “Carey, will you do the honors?”

The door swings open, and the room is much like it was at breakfast, although the light falls from the other direction: Kalen sits at the head of a long table, surrounded by guards. A tall, broad, green dragonborn sits at one side, a lean human cloaked in black at the other. Kalen is waving his fork. Unnoticed, Carey slips into the shadows. 

“—and that’s when I decided I wasn’t just gonna turn tail and run, fuck that. It was time to—”

He looks up, then, past the guards with their mix of captivation and boredom, and directly at the shimmering bubble entering his dining hall. His eyebrows jump upward as he stops speaking.

For a beat, the room is perfectly still and silent. Somewhere in the woods, a hawk cries.

Everyone around Kalen jumps to attention, but he holds up one large hand to stop them all in place. Then, he chuckles and shakes his head. 

“Wow. This is some shit, huh?” Kalen says. “I guess this one is on me. I should have guessed you were gonna try some bullshit, but  _ Kenneth?  _ They really talked you into this?” 

Taako shifts, as if his body could make a difference standing between the half-orc and the former fighter, both of them easily twice his size. Kenneth swallows but says nothing. 

“Well, come have a seat,” Kalen says, strangely calm and reasonable. Around him, his retinue is standing, moving slowly into position. “I can finish telling this story, new audience and all that. These guys have heard it before, and Mortas was even there for it, I’m sure he’s tired of me, but you…. I was just explaining how I decided to stand up for myself, you know, after your boy — where is he, by the way? — made a fool of me in front of my own people. Had to take a few months away to just think, you know, clear my head. And then I knew— figured out what was really just going to make the  _ right statement.”  _ He smiles, slowly, his eyes fixed on Taako and Lucretia standing side by side inside the shimmering barrier. His hand moves to a vest pocket. 

“Alright, enough of this horseshit,” Merle says, then raises a hand and the air around the head of the table fills with insects, summoned from nothing and swarming downwards furiously. The dragonborn swats some out of the air, but others hit their mark. The other guards shout in pain and frustration. The human pulls her cloak tighter, while Kalen merely frowns as welts appear on his face and neck. Merle cackles. “Told ya it comes in handy.” Lucretia cracks a smile.

Kalen’s hand closes on a wand in his pocket just as Carey grabs for it; between the Globe of Invulnerability and the Insect Plague, the two of them appear as vague shapes, struggling for a moment over the wand. It goes flying across the room in a long spinning arc, at the same time that Kenneth charges, unthinking, drawing the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom as he runs forward. Kalen grabs Carey’s arm and flings her toward Kenneth right as he tries to attack the dragonborn guard.

Then Kalen pulls out the whole roll of wands, hastily fumbling for one with a red crystal lashed to the end. He points, and a ball of flame bursts from it, expanding to land with a roar right on them. But the flames skitter off of the surface of the Globe of Invulnerability, leaving the three within untouched.

Kenneth gets in an attack with the sword; it’s sort of horrifying how much carnage the thing wreaks in a single blow, alight with flame, poison dripping from the edge. The dragonborn’s wound gapes open across their torso and they grunt in pain, but they hold off Kenneth’s other attacks, give several nicks of their own as they force Kenneth away, until Kenneth is almost face-to-face with Kalen, both of them caught in the swarming bugs.

The dragonborn faces down Carey. 

“Look at this tiny thing,” they say, sword at the ready to cut her apart.

“Yeah, well, you’re not doing too great yourself,” she says.

“Need a heal,” the dragonborn calls over their shoulder, glancing back towards the table. The hooded figure raises a hand clasping an eldritch symbol; the wound stops bleeding and begins to close.

“Well fuck,” Carey says.

Guards come rushing towards the bubble, and Taako casts and fires off two arrows at the guard closest to them, both streaking green through the air and exploding in a spray of acid that blinds his opponent. As a second guard approaches, Lucretia points her staff at the guards and a blast of icy air covers them in burning frost, causing them to halt and stumble. A few insects caught in the spell drop to the ground like tiny hail pellets.

From the corner of his eye, Taako sees a figure move quickly and with precision.  _ “Behind you—”  _ he thinks faster than he can say. He darts around Lucretia to reach the rogue before the rogue can reach her. In one swift movement a massive bolt of lightning erupts from the KrebStar, clutched white-knuckled in his fist, and blasts the rogue backwards and onto the floor. Taako lets out a breath and collects himself before turning back to the blinded guard, his clothes covered in frost and his face scarred and angry red, but still stumbling forward with his mace clutched in both hands. But before Taako can attack, he catches sight of Kenneth with the sword as he takes a fumbling step backwards from Kalen. 

“Fuck,” Taako says aloud, raising the KrebStar once more as Lucretia readies her staff beside him. 

Between them and Kenneth struggling at the table’s head, Merle stands at the ready across from Kalen’s hooded cleric, who palms a black book with yellowed pages, her eyes narrowed as she prepares a spell whose dark energy raises the hair on the back of Merle’s neck. He drops the insect swarm and the bugs vanish in an instant. The room feels still for a moment as he focuses, closes his eyes, prays to Pan with such conviction that the celestial he conjures appears effortlessly between them, haloed in the gold that only Pan’s divine energy could create.

An Applaud stands, taking the form of John Dye, his divine halberd clutched triumphantly in one hand. He flies upward, then dives for the opposing cleric, every hair remaining perfectly in place, before she has time to finish casting. 

“Time for you to get  _ touched by an angel,”  _ Merle hollers as John Dye swings his blade, “of DEATH!” 

For a second, Kenneth’s focus wavers as he gapes at the enormous figure with the appearance of a bland-faced human man. This whole fight is so far beyond anything in his experience or understanding. Kalen isn’t the fighter he used to be, but he’s got instincts Kenneth just doesn’t have. As they struggle, they’re close enough that Kenneth can hear the older man breathing.

“Son,” Kalen says, low enough that no one else can hear above the chaos. “You think they give a shit about you? I took you in when you had nothing.” 

Kenneth’s jaw tenses as his sword meets Kalen’s, the flames flicking down the blade close enough for sweat to bead on his forehead. He grits his teeth and pushes back. The golden glow of the Applaud, Lucretia’s shimmering shield, the scrape and struggle of the dragonborns beside him, it all becomes distant at once. He feels small under Kalen’s dark gaze. 

“They’ll kill you when it’s over, just like the rest of us, if they get their way,” Kalen says, taking another swing. Kenneth takes a step back and falters, leaving an opening for Kalen to slash across Kenneth’s midsection. The half-orc shouts and takes another step backwards. “Make the right choice here, kid!” 

Kenneth blocks Kalen’s follow up, but doesn’t return the attack. He can’t take his eyes off Kalen. He thinks of his new allies in the room around him, all four of them locked in struggle with people he’d come to know under Kalen, all four of them about to bring down the fortress that had been the only decent home he’d ever had. 

“You’re gonna let them use you?” Kalen sees Kenneth’s hesitation and holds his attack. “You’re better than that. I know you.” 

Kalen’s focus is broken for just a second as the dragonborn behind him screams in pain and frustration. Carey hops onto the table and gets a second blow with a dagger, dragging the blade in a jagged line between the large scales of their shoulder blade. They grab her leg with one large hand and try to toss her off, but she kicks easily out of their grasp and lands on her feet on the floor. The huge dragonborn looms over her, their pupils narrow slits in their angry orange eyes, their tongue flicking out menacingly. 

“You put up a pretty good fight,” they say with a dark chuckle. “For a  _ lizard.”  _

Her frill expands with pride and fury, as it hasn’t since she fought the Shadows at the Bureau of Balance. All her life, this bullshit about her size, about the Fangbattles— she keeps it cool, most of the time, but she’s just about done, done with this damn fortress, done with this asshole and the crew of small-minded jerks around him, done with all this. She opens her mouth and lets loose a blast of blue electricity. It strikes them right between the eyes, leaving a long line of charred black flesh up their forehead, and they stumble and fall backwards, eyes frozen open in death.

“Yup,” she says. “Sure do.” She jumps back up onto the table, ready to spring into the fray. 

Kenneth looks up at her. Just a few minutes ago, she tied up those guards, calm and tidy, going out of her way to leave them alive. She didn’t have to. He doesn’t know her at all, but what he does know is that she looks like someone who could kill without blinking if she thought it needed to be done. And she didn’t; she was the one who noticed his discomfort and cooled off the other three.

He glances back at Kalen, but sees Taako’s weeping face in the dungeon, Lucretia’s hollow eyes as Kalen threatened her son.  _ The right choice,  _ come Kalen’s words in his head. He blinks, thinking. He starts to say something, starts to push forward again with the sword, but it’s not in his hand anymore.

Taako sees Kalen snatch the sword from Kenneth’s grasp and his stomach drops. In the same moment, he hears a guard, covered in frost and on his knees beside the table, cry, “The wand!” and from his other side the rogue comes sprinting for it. He spots it on the floor and yells, “Creesh!” hoping she’s spotted it too. If they lose their magic, it’s over. 

Lucretia spots the wand beneath the table by her feet, hidden by the legs of a chair. She steps forward and picks it up: gnarled wood carved with arcane symbols. Frostbitten guards move toward them again, either to attack or to reach for the wand, or both. She snaps it in half, and there’s a whoosh of energy.

“Enough of this,” she says, her voice ringing clearly across the room. Everything pauses for a moment, the swords and spells fading into the distance, the glowing applaud poised in the air. 

“Yes, I agree.” Kalen grabs Kenneth into a chokehold in front of him. “We’ve all had enough,” he says. He raises the tip of the sword near enough to Kenneth’s throat to singe his stubble.

Taako holds the KrebStar in front of him and the air distorts and explodes into a sweeping thunderwave that knocks all the approaching guards to the ground. As soon as they’re down, he stops short, eyes wide as he meets Kenneth’s equally panicked gaze. 

Taako only has a single, frozen second to regret dragging the kid into this mess before the rogue behind him slashes one blade up his back, then stabs a second straight into his side. Taako’s vision goes white for a moment, the pain unbearable as it consumes him, and he collapses onto his knees. He gasps in shock at the same time Lucretia sucks in a sharp breath, feeling his jabbing pain through the connection of the band. Cold fury fills her as she tells him,  _ “Hold on.” _ Without turning away from Kalen, she points her staff at the rogue. A thin green ray shines from it, and nothing of him is left but ash. 

“Merle?” she calls, calm and stern. Then she glances at Carey, the light catching the  _ Best Friends _ necklace. Lucretia touches her own neck as she catches Carey's eye. Carey gives her a quizzical look, then a tiny shrug, and unnoticed by the others, unhooks it and throws it across the room. The fine length of chain coils in Lucretia's hand, the half-heart presses into her palm. She takes a deep breath and begins the words of a spell: Imprisonment. As the chain vanishes from her fingers, iron chains wrap around Kalen, pulling him to his knees and drawing a strangled sound from his throat. The sword clatters to the floor and is extinguished. The roll of wands tumbles out of his other hand.

At her feet, Merle kneels beside Taako, hands fretting over the torn, bloodied fabric on his back. “Hang in there, kid, I got— I burned most of my good slots but I gotcha.” 

“Not like you were gonna use ‘em to heal me anyway,” Taako retorts weakly, wheezing in a breath and hissing when it sends him into another frenzy of pain. The corners of his vision start to go dark just before the pain dulls and slowly fades, replaced by the familiar warmth and tingling of Merle’s healing magic. He breathes a small sigh of relief and keeps still to let the spell do the work it can.

Lucretia scans the room: no one left but them and Kalen. She drops the Globe of Invulnerability, no longer needed, and its shimmering light fades, leaving the room lit only by the late afternoon sun. Kenneth picks up the sword gingerly, stepping back from Kalen, his eyes flicking to the other door. Carey looks back and forth between the imprisoned Kalen and the trio.

“You want me to…?” she says, twirling a knife in one hand, looking somewhat the worse for wear. She’ll need healing too, and soon. Lucretia looks to Taako, struggling to stand, and Merle beside him, and gives the tiniest shake of her head.

_ “This was your promise,”  _ she says to Taako through the headband.  _ “Yours and Merle’s.”  _

Taako hears her voice but his movement aggravates his wounds too much to answer her. He gets onto his feet and uses a chair to hold himself up.  _ “Just make sure it hurts,”  _ he manages to answer her as he barely keeps his footing. But Merle puts a hand on Taako’s good side to help him balance, and Lucretia takes his arm from the chair, and the three of them walk forward together. When they reach where Kalen is chained to the floor, Kenneth hands Taako the sword, no longer flaming nor raging, to lean on. 

Kalen’s look of disinterested amusement has vanished, replaced by something more akin to terror or panic. He licks his lips, attempts a hesitant smile.

“So, uh…” and his voice for the first time is uneven as he continues, “...you’re not going to wait for, uh, the big guy, huh? Just let ol’ Burnsides get that final swing in...or is he just going to make that...uh, big entrance here….” He swallows heavily.

“Magnus isn’t coming, you prick,” Merle says, his voice just a little more gruff than usual. “He’s not here.” 

“He doesn’t know  _ we’re  _ here,” Taako adds, shoulders heaving with the effort to takes just to breathe. 

“He doesn’t even remember you  _ exist,”  _ says Lucretia with a tight angry smile.

Kalen’s face falls into a confused frown. “How…?” He cowers as Taako takes a step forward. His eyes go wide. “No. Wait— please….”

It’s so fucking satisfying to hear him beg. “Those lich curses, my dude. Turn your brain to swiss cheese.” All humor leaves Taako’s voice at once, replaced with a righteous rage. He clutches the handle of the sword so tightly that his fist trembles. “But don’t worry, we remember more than enough to get the job done.” 

Taako stands over Kalen, looming over the huge fighter now brought to his knees. He glances at Merle and they both nod. He turns and his eyes meet Lucretia’s on his other side. 

_ “One good thing from Wonderland,”  _ she thinks. In her mind’s eye, she sees the happy couple dancing, the gazebo Magnus built with his own hands; she’d been so lonely but so happy for him, satisfied that he’d found something good. It’s still gone, of course, all of it crumbled and turned to ash with the rest of the Craftsmen’s Corridor, but now…

With a thrust of her staff, the chains tighten and bring him further down to the ground, still. They hear the commotion of footsteps,  _ a lot  _ of footsteps, rushing through the hall connecting to the second— open— doorway. Reinforcements, surely. With his shoulders heaving, his hair hanging in his face, Kalen looks up at Taako with renewed confidence and flashes an exhausted, wicked grin. 

Taako holds himself up on the sword and wipes blood from his chin, reeling as he catches blurry fragments of Lucretia’s thoughts: Magnus and Julia in Raven’s Roost. Magnus’s booming laugh bouncing down the Corridor. Julia’s bandana falling from her hair as he hoists her up, still in her white dress. Someone handing her a beer. 

A place he should have been. A woman he should have known. 

He hears Magnus’s words in his mind, clear as they were in Wonderland.  _ Don’t talk to him. Don’t let him talk to you.  _ And though that ship has long sailed, this is still his promise. Their promise.  _ Kill him.  _

_ And tell him…. _

Taako gathers the last of his strength and summons the darkest magic he knows: Power Word Kill. He stares down at Kalen and, with composure and disgust, quietly utters the last words Kalen will ever hear.

“This is for Julia.” 

Still in chains, Kalen’s body seizes violently, then slumps to the ground and moves no more. A single trickle of blood drips from his nose.

For a moment, everything is still. Lucretia closes her eyes and lets out a long breath. Kalen is dead. They’re safe. Magnus, Angus, everyone, all of them, safe. 

“Finally,” she says.

“Yup,” says Carey, sauntering over and holding out her hand. Lucretia drops the charm into her palm as the sound of approaching footsteps grows louder. “Nice work, y’all, now how about we get the hell outta here?” 

“Understatement—” Taako chokes out a laugh, his eyes swimming with tears as he stares down at Kalen’s lifeless body. Somehow, even death isn’t punishment enough, but it will do. He’s aware of the footsteps, how they’re nearly here, and he tries to take a step but his legs are jelly. His wounds roar in pain at the movement; the room spins around him. He leans forward onto the sword, but it clatters to the ground beside him as he collapses once again.  

It’s chaos all at once. As he hits the floor, guards pour into the hall, all of their weapons drawn. Carey and Kenneth are immediately pulled into the fray. More guards approach Lucretia and Merle, Taako in a heap at their feet. 

Just outside the room, Lup and Kravitz materialize in a dark hallway, a whirl of ravens and flame, scythes and spells ready to take out whoever stands between them and their family. Lup lets out a cry and flies forward before she’s even oriented with her surroundings. As she does, she realizes the entrance is sealed shut by stones clearly manipulated by magic. She knows that transmutation work anywhere. 

“Taako!” she cries in equal parts joyous relief and pure frustration that they’re so close and yet somehow Taako’s the one who put this inconvenience between them. 

Kravitz yanks the arm of her robe as heavy footfalls start to fill the echoing hallway. “We’ve gotta go.” One last jump, then, and smoke billows into a large hall. Ravens gather in windows high up on the walls. A large table’s been pushed askew, and chairs tipped over, pushed aside. The air is full of magic— and blood. As they take in the scene and realize what’s happened, what’s still happening— so many guards running in, and Carey there in the fray, and spells firing and swords clanging, and a golden John Dye cutting Kalen’s men down, and the shock of Lucretia’s cropped white hair visible in the crowd— Lup screams and flies upwards in a flourish of flame and smoke, then turns and dives down into the crowd. 

She takes down any of Kalen’s men that she can, shooting off fireballs and sunbursts, taking care to shape them around Carey close-by. There’s an unarmed half-orc beside her, dodging attacks, throwing cheap shots where he can land them with his fists. Carey works in doubletime to stop any fatal blows from landing on him. 

As the last guard charging them falls to the ground, Lup swings her scythe with momentum to point at the half-orc’s throat beside her. 

“Yo, he’s with us!” Carey yells, reflexively parrying Lup’s scythe by the handle to get it away from Kenneth. He grabs a spear from someone— unsure of whose it was in all the chaos— and the three of them stand shoulder to shoulder.

Across the room, Lucretia holds fast, raising another shield around Taako and Merle.  _ “Are you still there?”  _ she calls through the band; she can feel him behind her, but there’s no conscious thoughts. All she can do is keep Kalen’s people off of them and hope Merle can keep him stable.  _ “Hold on just a little longer,”  _ she thinks, though he can’t hear her— or perhaps he can, maybe in his unconscious state he’ll know.  _ “I’ve got you, we’ve got you, we’ll get through this, just a little longer, I promise….” _

“Taako!” shouts Kravitz, sensing him, then spotting him crumpled beside Merle, who murmurs healing spells. He moves swifter than this conjured form should allow, flooded with equal measures of fear and relief, ignoring the bodies (even the fallen form still wrapped in arcane chains) and the fight and everything around them, just— Taako. Here, injured but alive.

But the guards are almost on his beloved, and no, absolutely not, and without a thought his scythe carves a gleaming arc of death. Bodies drop at his feet. He holds out the scythe as a warning, then looks to Lup. He calls out to her, “I’ve got him, if you—?”

_ “Just go!”  _ she shouts, not even looking in his direction.

Kravitz looks down at Merle. Taako lays limp in his lap as warm magical energy pours over his wounds. Lup’s voice is drowned out by the sound of more struggle, more footsteps coming down the hall. Kravitz’s jaw tightens; he drops to the floor before them and dons his human form. For just a moment, he brushes his hand along Taako’s unconscious, worn face. 

“We have to go,” Kravitz says with a seriousness that darkens as someone approaches from behind. He extends one hand behind him and an unkindness of ravens, summoned from thin air, send the would-be assailant stumbling backwards to where Lup can do her work. 

Merle looks at him. “Here,” he says as he nudges Taako in Kravitz’s direction. “Get him somewhere safe, and maybe come back for me, huh?” 

“We’re going to your place, actually,” he says as he opens the portal, “so how about you come along so I don’t scare your children.”

Kravitz kneels down and takes Taako easily into his arms, allowing Merle to stand and hop into the portal. As Kravitz gets up to follow him, Taako stirs; Kravitz’s heart leaps into his throat. 

“I’ve got you,” Kravitz says with comfort and conviction. “Just— just hold onto me, okay?” 

Taako’s breathing is so shallow, but he manages a small, defeated laugh. “Finally taking me home to Mom?” 

Tears spring to the corners of Kravitz’s eyes. “No.” He lets out a watery laugh. “Just home.” And he steps through the tear, holding Taako close, leaving the fortress behind them. 

Lucretia feels the connection of the band fade and then abruptly cut out. For a second, her grasp on her staff falters and the shield she’d been holding up around Taako and Merle drops.  _ “Taako?”  _ But there’s no answer. A rush of panic floods her, and when she looks back, they’re gone. Soon after, Merle’s applaud on the other side of the room fades away. As she steps back, her heel connects with the hilt of the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom, and with her staff extended to hold off attackers, she picks it up.

Staff in one hand, sword in the other, she carves a path to Carey and Kenneth, back to back behind Lup.

“Lup, I— I’m so glad you’re here, we need to go—” 

“We sure do, _ don’t we! _ ” Lup says through gritted teeth as she opens a tear with too much force. If her eyes weren’t embers, perhaps there would be tears. “We’ll talk about this  _ later—”  _ She points to the portal and Carey and Kenneth get in. Lup seethes. “Anyone else missing I should know about?”

“No, no, this is us, ready whenever you are.” It’s Lup, thank the gods, Lup is here, and they’ll talk later, and that’ll be— it’ll be something. But right now, she’s holding onto the feeling of relief and gratitude.

Lup raises one skeletal, flaming hand, and most of the remaining reinforcements stop where they stand, then retreat in fear. The room is destroyed, ash and blood everywhere, bodies scattered across the stone floor. At the head of the flipped table, a corpse in chains. She can only guess that it’s Kalen. Through all of her rage, Lup feels a small twinge of relief.

“Go,” she says to Lucretia. “You’re not gonna want to be on the floor for this.”

Lup, with her arm extended, closes her fist tightly and lowers it with intention. Below her floating form and Lucretia half-in the tear, the stone floor begins to glow, warming to a darkened brown that grows to a burning red, then spreads through the hall until it reaches the far wall. The floor turns bright orange and slowly liquifies, turning to lava where it had once been solid. The table, the corpses, it all sinks into the molten mass that burns down into the earth below. Lup unclenches her fist and lets her shoulders fall. 

But Lucretia lingers at the cusp of the portal, watching. The table catches fire, flames lapping all along its surface. A plate— one of his plates— slides off and is consumed in the lava. She doesn’t know what this place was, before, and while she’s spent years fighting to save everything on this plane, somehow she doesn’t mind if this fortress becomes simply a heap of melted black rock. No name, no marker, and she almost hesitates too long watching the dead tyrant’s corpse be consumed by fire and stone. 

They’ve done this, she thinks: it’s finally done. They did this for Magnus. Then, as Lup pulls her through the opening, ravens and fire and stone replaced by the quiet of Merle’s veranda, she remembers Taako’s voice.  _ This is for Julia. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the Android app 5th Edition Spellbook was invaluable here; it’s got some really nice filtering options that helped us get a list of potentially useful spells. We’re also pleased that, like with Nitpicker in Chapter 9, the Atlanta liveshow confirmed our take on Merle, although admittedly the applaud is a homebrew creature vs the official pegasus. We’d like to think that Clint would have taken the opportunity to draw from Touched By An Angel again if he could have.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beach is a great place for healing. Lucretia makes an offer. Lup tries to cope. Carey takes off.

Taako slips in and out of consciousness as they step through the tear into the upstairs of the manor. Kravitz holds him close, following Merle down the quiet hallway, presumably to an empty guest room. They were almost too late, he keeps thinking, keeps seeing them all under attack, and Taako...

Death is sacred to Kravitz, more than most things, and even so-called untimely death is important and even necessary. And Taako— well, his work isn’t so dangerous anymore, but there’s always a certain chance in adventuring....

And yet. He thanks, perhaps not Herself, perhaps instead Taako’s patron Lady Fate that Merle was with them, that he arrived at the right moment, that they’re here, now, and Taako isn’t dead, Taako isn’t going to die.

Kravitz lays him down on the bed in their usual guest room for summer vacations. It feels odd to have it as a bed for recuperating instead.

One of His Queen’s gifts is to give a bit of healing to those who are not yet fated to die, and it’s with the most desperate and tender kiss that he whispers those words against Taako’s forehead.

As a wave of calm comes over him, Taako sinks back into bed. He stirs slightly, and with his eyes still closed, he murmurs, “That’s the good stuff. I know that one,” almost incoherent. “Kraaav.” 

“You’re alright, my dove,” he replies, almost to himself as much as to Taako. His eyes flicker to the cloth headband, still tied in Taako’s messy hair. He unties it gingerly and sets it on the bedside table. Soon he’s going to have to ask what all happened; there’s more to Taako’s expression than simply the aftermath of battle. But there’ll be time for that soon enough. He sits at Taako’s bedside and takes his hand. 

Taako’s side still aches despite all the healing given to him by Merle and Kravitz both. His body is mended, but he’s still exhausted and sore and wants to sleep for a week straight. He squeezes Kravitz’s hand and hums. He can’t find his voice to say anything, even though an hour ago he would have given anything to just have one more conversation with him. He’s still reeling as his consciousness starts to fade again. But out in the hallway there’s a commotion and his heart jumps so hard that it jolts him awake. 

“Shh,” and Kravitz squeezes his hand again before standing. “You need to rest now.” Kravitz goes into the hall to find Lup staring down at Merle. 

“What’re ya gonna do, yell him better?” Merle says.

“Hey? Hey Merle?” Lup says, taking a deep breath as she looks down at him. “I think after the day we’ve all had?” She looks up at Kravitz and her gaze softens immediately. “Is he—” 

“He’s going to be fine,” says Kravitz, “but after the day  _ he’s  _ had I think he needs the rest. It was—” Kravitz closes his eyes, tired even though his body doesn’t require sleep. Heartsore, perhaps. “It might’ve been a near thing, I think.”

“So let’s let the kid sleep and the rest’a us can all go downstairs, have some mac n’ cheese, pour a couple drinks? C’mon!” Merle reaches up and smacks Kravitz on the back, as high up as he can. “I’ll tell you guys all about the adventure that was totally fine and went as planned!” 

“Merle, I love you so much, and I need you to fuck off right now,” Lup says, pushing past him and locking eyes with Kravitz as she passes him, too. He raises an eyebrow, but knows better than to stop her now. She wants to scream and cry and laugh and fall down at his bedside, and as she rounds the corner to his room, she almost does. 

But instead of all that, she’s completely still in the doorway, just staring at him there in the bed. He meets her eyes and sits up a little, opens his mouth to say, “Listen—” 

The word’s not even out of his mouth before Lup launches to his side, being mindful not to hurt him. She puts her hands on either side of his face and scoots him sideways so she can sit on the edge of the bed beside him. Tears fall from her eyes without any effort to stop them. 

“I’m so fucking—” she laughs through her tears. “I’m so pissed at you. Oh, ‘Ko.”

“Had to sign a cookbook,” he murmurs. 

“Sure you did. Dingus.” She rests her forehead on his. “Don’t fucking do that again.” 

Taako closes his eyes, furrows his brow. “Had to.” 

She sighs. She wants to scold him. She wants to argue. He didn’t have to. Of course he didn’t have to. Of course he could have told her the truth, even if he’d waited until that last conversation. But maybe he did have to, in another way, maybe he needed to do this without her— and that breaks her heart a little. But it’s not the right time for all that. She’s done a lot of waiting, and she supposes she can do a little more.

“Still. Just don’t, okay?” 

“Is—” Taako’s voice gets swallowed up by something made of grief and fear. His voice breaks a bit as he asks, “Is Angus okay?” 

She laughs, a little bit rough through the tears. “Other than getting yelled at? Little man’s just fine, still keeping Maggie company.”

Taako feels the weight of it all just fall off his shoulders. He can’t help the few relieved tears that fall from his closed eyes. “‘Kay, good, that was all,” he says with a sniff. He feels so tired all at once. “You can be mad now.” 

Except she can’t, not now. So much runs through her mind— _ why was he worried about Angus? _ —  but, again, she can tell it has to wait...at least until she can go grill Lucretia.

“I can be mad later, too. When you’re awake enough to yell at properly, yeah?” 

He falls back into unconsciousness before he can manage to put together an answer. When she looks up, Kravitz is standing in the doorway.

“So?” he says.

“What the fuck happened up there?” she asks.

He shakes his head.

“Merle says it went fine, but that seems….”

“Full of shit, obviously.”

Lup looks from Taako to the window, then back to Taako. Her heart twists in her chest. 

“What was he thinking? All of them…” she says, turning away as anger surges through her, upsetting her all over again. 

Kravitz takes her hand and leads her away from the bed. “They were thinking of Magnus,” he says. “And they didn’t think—” He remembers Taako’s breezy demeanor, just a few days earlier, as if they were running out to the market and back, don’t worry, don’t wait up. He shakes his head.

As they walk out onto the second floor porch, Lup walks straight to the railing and grips it tight with both hands. All she wants to do is sink to the floor, or scream, or go back inside and hold onto Taako so tight he could never leave again. She closes her eyes, lip trembling. 

“I think he didn’t want you to worry,” Kravitz says. “If I had thought he was going to—”

Lup draws one huge, shaking breath, then it bursts from her: “I’m so fucking  _ mad  _ at him, Krav!” She grips the railing tighter. She’s been mad at Taako a hundred thousand times before, but never once like this. “I’m so… I can’t…” She laughs, teary. “I hate it.”

He puts a hand on her back. He doesn’t know what to say. He can hear the murmur of other voices somewhere below them, and more distantly, the crash of the waves on the shore. He lets the silence expand between them, wanting to offer comfort, but no words quite match the moment.

Lup flicks her scythe into her palm and passes it back and forth between her hands. She tries to remember how to breathe through the choppy, anxious waves in her mind, but it’s all gone. Taako, in danger. Taako, dead. And her, without him for the rest of her eternity. Her breath shudders, fallout from all the crying. She wants to go home. 

“Should we call Barry?” he says, when he can’t think of anything else. “I’m sure Merle would fix up a guest room for both of you.”

She sniffs and laughs a little as she leans on her scythe. “Poor thing’s always the last to know.” 

* * *

The first thing Lucretia notices is the feel of the worn wood of the floor of the deck under her hands as she stumbles to her knees. The second thing is the soft salt breeze. Then, at once: it’s quiet, but also she feels the slight tug of a connection lingering through Taako’s band; he’s asleep, but he’s there, and then the connection fades, and she’s crying. She’s not sure when she started crying.

“Hey, boss, c’mon,” Carey says, putting an arm in hers and hauling her to her feet. “You’re gonna be okay. Let’s get you, uh, a seat, maybe a drink of water.”

“I keep telling you,” she replies weakly, “you can call me Lucretia.”

It is the thirty-seventh time that she’s said it in one way or another, and the days of the unknowable Madame Director are a long time ago, but it still feels weird to Carey to be that familiar. Or at least, familiar in that way. She pulls Lucretia into an awkward sideways hug instead, then helps her to the porch swing.

Carey looks at the half-orc standing by the stairs, shifting from foot to foot.

“Kenneth, right?”

He nods.

“You wanna go get her a glass of water? Straight back through the parlor and hang a right.”

He walks through the large airy house: a very different place from anywhere he’s ever been. Potted plants, lush and green, cover every conceivable surface. There’s a parlor, and a hall, and a dining room, and he starts to realize what kind of place they’re in, how different it is, and he’s a bit overwhelmed.

Plus—he touches his side—he’s bleeding. Not much, but maybe he needs a drink of water too.

As he comes into the kitchen, he smells warm savory cheese; a young dwarf woman stirs a pot, and she looks at him with a tilt of her head.

“I'm Mavis, and you are....?” she asks, remarkably calm about the sudden presence of a strange injured half-orc in what is presumably her kitchen.

“Kenneth...uh, Bonebreaker? The dragonborn lady, she said, um, I should get them some water?”

Her brows furrow and she takes the pot off of the heat.

“You know you’re bleeding, right?”

He shrugs, which also hurts.

“Hold on, we’ll get them some water, just let me….” And she comes over, touches his arm, and oh, well, maybe he had a broken rib in there, too, but it’s better now. The wounds close up and the bleeding stops, inside and out. He takes a deep breath as she looks at him with concerned eyes. “Better?”

He nods. “Yeah, wow. Thanks.” She’s young as dwarves go, as far as he can tell, but she’s got more skill than her age would imply.

She smiles, shaking her head. “Sorry Dad didn’t get you. Typical.” She takes down glasses, gets out a tray. “Fill ‘em up and we’ll go see how Carey and Aunt Lucretia are doing.” 

He follows her back through the house, carrying the tray. As they come back onto the lanai, the women are talking quietly.

“--can check on him if you want, maybe swing by and get Kils, we'll take him monster hunting or something?”

“I'd appreciate that. I don't know how long Taako will be laid up.”

Mavis clears her throat. “Hey, Aunt Lucretia, everything go okay?”

Lucretia's lips twitch in a faint ironic smile. 

“Well enough. And here? Manage the earldom in his absence?”

Mavis laughs. “Pretty much runs itself most of the time.” Then she notices the cut on Carey's face, the bruises on her shoulder. “Did Pop do  _ any _ healing? Or just Zone of Truth everybody?”

Lucretia takes a deep breath. It’ll be some time, she thinks, before she can joke about Zone of Truth again.

“I dunno if I've got a high enough spell slot for all this,” Mavis says, giving Carey an appraising eye, “but we can always raid the healing potion stash. C’mon.” She leads Carey into the house, leaving Lucretia and Kenneth alone on the porch together. 

Kenneth stands awkwardly for a moment, shifting his weight between his feet, his side still warm and tingling from Mavis’s healing spell. He’s not sure where to put his hands, or where to look, or what to do, really. Does he talk to Lucretia? What kind of small talk do you make when fifteen minutes ago you were locked in combat wielding a huge flaming sword alongside three of the saviors of Faerun, and now you’re just… at the beach? 

He clears his throat and puts his hands on the bannister. The ocean goes on further than he can see, maybe further than he can comprehend. He’s never seen the ocean before. There’s something about the realization that overwhelms him. 

“Beautiful, isn’t it? Merle really had the right idea, I think, living on the beach.” She thinks maybe she should visit more often, not just for their summer holiday. It’s a good place here. 

“Yeah, it’s…” He can’t think of a word for it. He can’t really think of any words at all. The air smells of salt, it’s crisp and cool despite the afternoon heat. He’s never been anywhere like this before. He’s never really been anywhere besides Hurn. 

“I didn’t see the ocean until I left home to go to school,” she says mildly. “It’s quite a thing. And I never appreciated it properly until that year….” She thinks back to a happier time, so long ago now, the days when they played in the surf, early morning swims, friends on the verge of family. Abruptly she misses Magnus, wishes she could just lean her head on his shoulder while he strokes her hair. She lets out a sigh. “You know, it’s really even more of a sight from up there,” she adds, looking up. No moon out yet, but it’s there, and in some ways, now it’s home. 

It’s strange that he knows the year she means. Everyone on the planet knows. But knowing the Story had been one thing: growing up with it as something far away had been something else, out there in a place where “happy ever after” never quite arrived. And then, hearing a take on it from Kalen, who already hated two of the seven, who had a grudge, well, that had been yet another thing, and in some way it’d made sense, right? But now what? Who  _ are _ they? What does it  _ mean,  _ exactly? 

She looks at this stranger — of all the guards who she saw over these last two days, all the people in that mining camp, they happened to encounter someone who was, for just a moment, just the right moment, ready to help.

“Did you grow up in Hurn?” she asks, her old ghostwriting instincts coming back to the fore. If nothing else, no cleric ever touched whatever caused the burn mark across his jaw. “It looks like a...challenging place to be a kid.”

He nods. “Yeah.” It’s an answer to both her points. He lets Hurn weigh heavy in his mind; he’s known nothing but Hurn, and she has known a hundred other worlds. He’s not sure if he admires or resents her for it. “It’s… I…” He worries his lip with a tusk as he searches for any articulate thought. “Never been anywhere else.” 

“Everyone starts somewhere,” she says, standing from the swing. Her knee pops loud enough for both of them to hear, and she swears under her breath, for a moment completely undignified. “Sorry about that.” She stands beside him. “I think it’s beautiful, in its own way, from the little I saw. And I think….” She pauses, gathering her thoughts: some part of her never stops working, and she’s been thinking of this from the minute they walked through the town gate. “I think we can help make it better. This is something, something I’ve been trying to do, and there’s so  _ many _ places.” She sighs, looks sideways up at him, weighing the question in her mind. “Do you think— would you— I was serious, back there, you know. If you want to join the Bureau, I’m sure….” She trails off. “You wouldn’t have to go back to Hurn, if you didn’t want to, but there are so many….” 

He lets go of the railing and turns, finally really looking at her. This woman who he’d imagined, perceived, resented, in Story and rumor alike… she’s not what he’d thought she’d be. She’s poised, of course, but she’s worn down, small, almost, where she’d been larger than life in his mind. He allows himself to really ponder the offer. What would it be like to be  _ up there?  _ What would it be like to be a part of this? 

He swallows. He supposes he already is. 

“I’d… I’d have to think about it,” he says. 

* * *

Krav hadn’t told Barry much: something happened with Taako, Lup’s upset, please drop what you’re doing and get to Merle’s. He had to check in with the big boss, of course, but RQ’s got a soft spot for them, so it’s pretty much just a formality. He’ll make it up later.

When he gets into their guest room at the manor, she’s pacing up and down, which is absolutely a bad sign. Then she just looks at him, and without even knowing what the heck just happened, his heart breaks for her, just a little.

“I got you, babe,” Barry says, and with a few quick words, throws up a Zone of Silence. Whatever it is, might as well just keep it between them. 

“Bear,” she breathes, and before she even reaches him, she crumbles. He holds her up as she sags into his shoulder. “I’m— I can’t— Taako is such an  _ idiot.”  _ But there’s something there that she’s not saying, so much he doesn’t know. “And I’m so mad but I  _ can’t be  _ mad and maybe I’m overreacting but he could have  _ died—”  _ She’s not aware of how her voice climbs as she rambles until it’s too late.

“Hey, hey, hey. Remember the breathing thing? C’mon. He’s not dead, you can absolutely be mad at him, just breathe first.” He rubs a hand rhythmically up and down her back. 

“They went off without even— they didn’t tell me,” she says, then tries to breathe, but it’s stupid, it’s such bullshit, the breathing, the meditating, it worked in the umbrella when she had nothing, but not here, not now. There’s too much at stake now to just breathe through the feeling; that’s the thing: there’s so many feelings to breathe through, and they’re all so bad. She almost chokes on her breath. “And we got there and it was almost too late.” 

“Wasn’t, though, so that’s good, right? And Taako, you know how he just runs off and does dumb shit with the boys.” He keeps up his own breathing, the rhythm of his hand on her back, even though he can feel her agitation. He considers offering to cast Calm Emotion but figures it’s probably a bad idea. “Why’s this one—?” 

As if the first time hadn’t been bad enough, the image of Taako is there again, limp and bloodied in Kravitz’s arms as they step through the tear to safety. She shudders as the feeling rolls through her again, even stronger than before. Something coming unhinged. Something red and electric and unstoppable, coming to untether her from her form if she doesn’t… 

She grips onto Barry with both hands and lets out a few loud, ragged cries, then holds tight as they breathe together. He’s murmuring against her neck; she can feel the vibrations on her skin but can’t hear a thing over the roar in her ears. 

When her head stops spinning, she goes slack against him and closes her eyes. “He lied to me,” she says, and it sets her teeth on edge again. “But he told Kravitz and I don’t know—“ She loses all her breath, her skin crawling. “Why didn’t he trust  _ me?”  _

“Oh babe.” He doesn’t know. He has some hypotheses: the memory of their search for her and their shared despair, his experiences during their lost decade, what he saw trying to watch over Taako and Magnus and Merle during that strange final year. He’s seen how different it is with them, listened to Lup worry about it, encouraged her to be patient. Seems like this might be a turning point, if she and Taako are ready for it. “I could, you know, come with you if you need someone if, uh, when you talk?” 

“I don’t want to talk,” she mutters, balling a fist in his shirt. “I kind of want to scream and wreck shit.” 

She doesn’t like being angry, much less at Taako, but she is, and they’re here, and she’s not even sure she wants to be right now. They need to talk, not just about this but… everything. Just, everything, from before, from when they were apart and alone, from after when they tried to put everything back together, from now, because everything is still broken and Taako’s still broken and  _ she’s  _ still broken and she can’t fix it all by herself. 

It’s easier to say Taako will talk about it when he’s ready, because she’s not ready, either. It’s easier to just go home and go back to normal. 

And it’s easier to set things on fire. More fun.

“I’m sure Merle’s got a spot like that for the Teen Adventurers if you wanna go shoot some cans or something.”

After turning an entire stone floor to magma, shooting cans seems pretty boring, but it would have to do. She nods against his shoulder. 

“Hot date: tin can shooting range and Merle’s shitty food,” she jokes weakly. 

He sniffs the air: mac and cheese, Taako’s recipe but slightly different spices. “I think we’ll be okay, pretty sure Mavis is cooking tonight.”

“Oh, good,” Lup laughs a little, lifting her head so Barry can wipe her tears away. “We’re saved.” 

* * *

Between Mavis and an oddly solemn Merle, Carey feels almost good as new: bug bites healed, bruises cleaned up, a little sore still but nothing she’s not used to. She does a big stretch, popping joints from neck to tail as she goes.

“Stay for dinner?” asks Merle. “Mave here makes a mean casserole.”

“I bet, but naw.”

“Gotta get home to that gal of yours?”

She smiles, thinking of Killian, how much she misses her; they’re often apart for days at a time with their jobs, but today: this is different.

“Something like that. Plus I promised— Said I’d check in on Maggie.”

“Well, come back soon; you know the whole gang’ll be here in a couple weeks, and you’re both always welcome.” He chuckles. “We’ll do some more yoga together, yeah?”

She squeezes his shoulder. “Yeah, soon.” 

They head out onto the veranda together, where Lucretia and Kenneth are standing side-by-side. They’re both quiet, but it seems oddly companionable. 

“I’mma bounce,” she says; already the glass ball she’s summoned is on its way to land on the manor lawn. There’s a divot just the right size, like a regular landing pad. 

Lucretia nods, her eyes not quite focused on anything in particular. She finally looks at Carey with a long searching gaze.

“Let me know…?”

“Will do, bo— Lucretia.” She’s not used to it, but maybe it’s about time. She looks at Kenneth, the half-orc looking sideways at her, like he’s not quite comfortable in his skin here.

“Hey,” she says softly. “You did good, bud. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

An almost panicked look crosses his face, but he just nods. She glances at Lucretia again.

“If she offers you a job, you take it. That’s what I did; best decision I ever made.”

As Carey heads down the stairs, Lucretia clears her throat. “Could you send Ang—”

“Stuff him in a glass ball? Already on my list, no worries.”

As the glass ball heads upward towards the moon base, Carey watches the manor get smaller and smaller until it’s a just a dot by the ocean. Her and Killian, they usually only make just a brief appearance at “family vacation”: between their jobs they’re both pretty busy, and honestly they still feel at the periphery of the family that is the Starblaster crew, whatever Magnus or Lucretia might say. But as she turns from looking down at the ocean to up at the moon, she thinks maybe they’ll stay a little longer this time. She’s even looking forward to doing some morning stretches with Merle.

But for now, her whole heart is focused on the woman waiting for her: her home, wherever she is. She gets out of the ball into the familiar hangar, ready to hoof it across the base to get to Killian’s office, right now please. To her utter delight, though, Killian is just  _ there,  _ leaning against a half-disassembled ball, chatting it up with Avi as he frowns at a burnt-out part. She can’t help it: she drops her pack on the floor and heads for Killian at a flat-out run, throwing her arms around her. She rests her head on Killian’s broad chest for a long time without saying a word.

“You doin’ okay?” asks Killian finally.

“I’m fine,” Carey replies, “but it was real close there.” She pulls away and looks into her wife’s eyes. “We got him though, and that’s  _ real good.” _

Killian smiles. “I bet.” She strokes Carey’s cheek. “Bet they were glad you were there, too.” She pulls her in for another hug. “How ‘bout we head home, get some takeout, catch up on some scrolls?”

Carey makes a little apologetic noise.

“Aw, Carey, really?”

“Promised. You up for taking Maggie out for drinks? Plus, uh, said I’d ship kiddo off to Bottlenose Cove.”

Killian sucks in a breath. “He’s not in trouble, is he?”

“Maybe a little bit.” She laughs. “Okay, maybe a lot.”

“Come  _ on. _ He was trying to do the right thing.”

“Yeah, well, shit went kinda weird.”

“Alright, well, I guess. You gotta tell me about it on the way, though.”

“Fuck. You know I do.”

They look to Avi, who’s already set the broken component on the bench and is entering the coordinates to fire them off to Neverwinter. Killian throws her arm around Carey’s shoulder, grabs her pack, and they set off together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually, in D&D, once a character’s been healed, they’re just kinda back exactly how they were, which honestly isn’t particularly interesting narratively. In this, wounds may be healed, but getting that badly injured? Still requires some rest and recuperation. We also incorporated this [homebrew 5E Grim Reaper class](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Grim_Reaper_\(5e_Class\)) for Kravitz specifically so he could heal Taako. Because romancé.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An awkward family dinner gets more awkward with the addition of Angus. Emotions are both calmed and agitated. Merle and Kravitz talk about death.

After Carey leaves, Merle heads back into the house, leaving the others standing together on the porch. Lucretia is still lost in thought, gazing out across the front lawn. Mavis looks up at Kenneth and clears her throat. “Hey, um, can you give me a hand?” He follows her into the kitchen; she points at a cupboard and he takes out a stack of plates while she removes a large casserole dish from the oven. Merle’s at a dwarf-height counter chopping radishes and tossing them into a wooden salad bowl, humming tunelessly as he works.

“You sticking around for dinner, Keith?” Merle says, using the tongs to distribute the radishes through the salad. Kenneth considers correcting him, but isn’t sure yet if he should. “Good, good.” 

The three of them head past a small dining room, where four short chairs sit around a similarly-scaled table, and into a larger hall with a big table to accommodate a multitude of sizes — a homely equivalent of the room he spent so many meals standing in, serving and guarding but never eating. He sets seven plates out, one for each of them, but there’s an eighth plate in his hand. He holds it up and looks at Mavis quizzically.

“Oh, my little brother should be home pretty soon; he’s off doing the whole ‘Teen Adventurers’ thing, so after the day campers head out he’ll be here.” She smiles fondly as she sets the macaroni and cheese on a trivet at the center of table. “He’s...a lot, but he’s my brother, you know?”

Kenneth shrugs. He doesn’t know, but he doesn’t want to be rude.

“He’s got too much energy for his damn body, is what that boy is,” says Merle, entering with the salad. Then he hollers at the top of his lungs for everyone to  _ get the hell down here while it’s still hot dammit;  _ Kenneth startles at the sudden change in volume, but everyone seems accustomed to it as they all file in.

Merle takes the head of the table, and Mavis the seat to one side of him. The two Reapers he’d met, and a third person — Barry Bluejeans,  _ another  _ one of the Birds — all sit on one side without a word. Lucretia takes the spot by Mavis, then looks at him expectantly. He blinks at this family tableau, then takes not the seat at the foot of the table, but the one beside her.

With Barry and Kravitz on either side of her, and having just blown the hell out of several (hundred) tin cans, Lup feels a bit more at ease. However, as she looks across from her: Lucretia.  _ That  _ would have to be a conversation soon; not  _ now,  _ but soon. And to Lucretia’s side, the stranger from the fortress she’d taken through the tear, a half-orc who looks so out-of-place that he appears to be in actual, physical pain. 

“So, our plus-one is sticking around?” Lup asks, glancing from Lucretia to Merle, then back to Kenneth. “What’s your name, dear?” 

Lucretia looks up at him and nods slightly. He fiddles with his fork as the others begin to pile food onto their plates. Neither of them have taken any yet.

“It’s…. Kenneth? Kenneth Bonebreaker?”

“Kenneth ended up helping us, so….” She wants to start to explain, but finds herself trailing off, not yet ready to think about Taako in the dungeon chatting up Kenneth. 

Lup’s demeanor softens slightly. “Oh, well, in that case, welcome to the table.” She does her best to smile as she wonders what Lucretia means, why they needed the help at all, and then her mind starts spinning anyway. Why did they go? How did things break so badly? How close of a call was all of it, really? She feels nauseous as she looks down at her plate, and only surfaces from her thoughts as Barry puts a hand on her knee. 

“Hey,” he says softly, so only she can hear. She nods and leans into him for just a moment. 

After a few beats of silence of everyone chewing, followed by a few murmurs of praise to Mavis for her culinary prowess, Merle clears his throat. “Kevin here was a big help, yeah, didn’t trust him at first but what can you do? Yup…” When nobody else says anything, he just continues. “He helped us get Taako and Lucretia’s stuff, after— well, before that, Carey and I had to break into the place, ‘cause we got separated and all, and we killed some guys but he wanted to help,” Merle says, pointing to Kenneth, trying shrink away into the chair that’s just a little bit too small for him. 

“Pop….” says Mavis, trying to spare Kenneth a little bit. Lucretia sighs softly.

Merle waves a hand. “Anyway, he got us to the stuff, and then he had to go off with Taako, and we broke Lucretia out of the dungeon, and—” 

Kravitz chokes on his sip of water as Lup shouts,  _ “What?”  _ and Barry gets a grip on her arm so she doesn’t move. Lucretia winces, looking down at her still-untouched plate, while Mavis’s eyes go wide.

Merle continues, unfazed. “So yeah, then we got to the hall and that douche starts—” 

“No, no, no, no, no, hold on, let’s pump the breaks, Merle. Take it again? You wanna take that again?” Lup says, nostrils flaring. 

Her grief and worry eclipse all else. She looks at Lucretia, watching her stare down at the table, feeling the pang of empathy in the middle of it all, but she’s still  _ angry,  _ and not even Barry’s hand on her shoulder can quell that. 

_ “Dungeon?”  _ she finally manages to ask. 

Lucretia takes a deep breath; still looking at her plate and not the others, she says, “It was a trap. The whole thing.” Now she can’t stop her hands from trembling, even when she balls them into fists under the table. “We…. Taako and I….” She can’t even say it, really; she can barely  _ think _ it.

Lup opens her mouth to continue shouting, but Merle cuts her off. “Hey, it happened! Sometimes you just get captured!” 

And, for a brief moment, there is a chaos identical to the one a few moments before it: Lup nearly jumps to her feet as Barry holds her down, his resolve clearly weakening as he looks at Lucretia with silent concern etched onto his face. Kravitz, looking entirely too anxious, makes eye contact with Barry. 

“Krav, no—” he says, but it’s too late, and Kravitz casts Calm Emotions over the room. 

Immediately, Lup lets out a huge sigh and picks up her fork, feeling the last of her rage slowly draining from her. She feels the  _ desire  _ to be upset with them, and even more to be upset with Kravitz, but the anger itself never comes. 

“I’m glad everyone got out safely,” Lup says softly, taking a bite of her macaroni and making a pleasant note to kick Kravitz’s ass later.

Lucretia takes a deep breath as the frozen terror thaws out of her hands and her chest. Her stomach doesn’t hurt quite so much, and she finds she can eat now.

“Think you can beat me at my own game, huh?” Merle says to Kravitz, not unkindly. 

“Just don’t impede on the Zone of Truth stuff,” Mavis jokes. “That’s his territory.” 

“Right, so don’t make me cast it,” Merle chuckles.

With her emotions calmed, Lucretia finds herself almost laughing. “He did, trying to get information out of a remarkably terrible bard, and it went so badly, and then—” She’s aware of the well of feelings, right there, but she can’t quite feel them yet. She blinks slowly, Kalen’s face in her mind’s eye. “Kalen had a wand of, of, of…. He had a wand of Zone of Truth. That was not great.” She takes another deep breath.

“Yeah, it didn’t seem…” Kenneth starts softly. She looks up at him quizzically.

“So you heard all that? That was you, the door?”

He nods. Just a few minutes hidden in the shadows, listening to them interrogated, hearing them after when they thought they were alone.  _ All that _ he’d heard: it had stuck in his craw, made him rethink what he was doing. It still feels too private, too much to talk about.

“I see.” With her feelings muted, the edges of her fear blunted, she's not inclined to press him on it as she might otherwise. She takes a bite of salad, then looks at Merle. “This is good. Your garden?” 

“Yup, thanks for noticing, been working real hard on keeping up the ol’ home produce game.” 

Lup frowns, feeling a twist in her gut, knowing that if Taako had been there at the table he would have already fired off a crude joke about Merle and his  _ produce game _ , as it were. For the moment she thinks her sadness has cut through Kravitz’s spell, that her connection to Taako remains despite the magic. But more sensibly, she realizes that the spell has simply ended. Following her sadness, her anger and anxiety rise once again, though more manageable than before. 

Barry clears his throat, sensing from the quiet shift of mood that the spell has ended. “It wasn’t great,” Barry says slowly, picking up where Lucretia left off before anyone else does. “But Kalen’s dead now, yeah? So no matter what happened in there, we’re safe.” 

For a moment, Barry’s eyes linger on Kenneth, who obviously avoids his gaze. 

“Yeah,” Merle snorts. “It was. Bad. Ass. Taako just walked up to him and  _ bam,  _ on the floor. Shoulda seen it.” 

“I’m good, Merle, I’ll take your word for it,” Barry says. 

Lucretia feels her stomach twist again with the spell’s end and watches distantly as tears fall into her food.  _ Safe. _ She sees the iron chains wrapped around Kalen, his body pulled to the ground. 

“Creesh?” Barry says quietly from across the table. 

“He’s really dead, isn’t he?” she says. “I thought— We almost—” She shakes her head. 

“Hey, it’s…” Barry glances at Lup and Kravitz, finding no help. “It’s alright, do you—” 

As he starts to stand up, the front door opens hesitantly, creaking loudly as it does. And then, the sound of a gentle, nervous, and still surprisingly deep voice. “Hello? Mister Merle, sir?” 

Lucretia shoves back her chair without a second’s hesitation, the scraping against the floor filling the awkward silence. She runs for the door, but pulls up short in the foyer, just looking at him. His hair is standing straight up and there’s a furrow in his brow and dark circles under his eyes. But he’s here, and the thing gripping her heart eases just a fraction at the sight of him.

Angus feels frozen as she looks at him. “Mom—” he breathes, taking in the sight of her wide, exhausted eyes and her dirty clothes, and before he can think to do anything else, he runs forward and throws his arms around her. It’s like he’s a child again, and he’s small and afraid and gripping onto her after the world had come so close to ending. 

It didn’t then, and it won’t now. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know— I just wanted to help, I—” Angus stammers. He holds onto her as tightly as he can, as if that could ease whatever left her face as stricken as it is, as if it could take back the damage he’d accidentally done. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Gods, I just— I thought, I thought— I’m so glad you’re here.”

Her heart is so choked she can barely speak. She rocks with him back and forth for a moment without a word. There’s a little corner of her that wants to scold him, but she’s just so glad he’s alive, he’s safe, he’s here where she can see and touch him.

“Oh, Angus, honey. I know, I know.” She pulls back and looks at him, that familiar face, almost grown, the tiny scar over one eyebrow from getting thrown into a pile of furniture, another under his lip from jumping off of a train. Something of Magnus in his eyes. “At least we got him.”

He tries for a tentative smile. “Yeah?” She nods, not trusting herself with more words. He looks past her with a question in his eyes. “Where’s Taako?” he asks.

Lucretia blinks away tears. “He’s…. He’s resting.”

“Oh.”  _ Resting from what,  _ he wonders, but Angus doesn’t push, instead lets her take his arm and lead him in to dinner: an intimidating array, despite Mavis’s friendly face. The only spot is at the end of the table opposite Merle...and next to a completely unfamiliar half-orc with a scarred face wearing battered armor. He does some quick mental calculations, and concludes with, “You must be from Hurn? I’m Angus McDonald.” He holds out a hand, which Kenneth looks at with an unreadable expression.

_ Is this  _ him _?  _ Kenneth asks himself.  _ It has to be.  _ The family resemblances are unmistakable. He shakes Angus’s hand, finally. “Hi, yeah, Kenneth.” Angus nods crisply and sits; Mavis passes the dish of macaroni and cheese, while Barry hands him the salad bowl. 

“So, um…” Mavis looks at Angus with a faint air of concern, trying to steer things onto what she hopes is neutral ground. “How’s Magnus doing?”

He wrinkles his nose, and sighs before answering. “Fine? Carey and Killian were gonna take him out for something, I guess.” He thinks about what Magnus told him — ask for help, trust your friends, they won’t be mad forever —  as he tries not to be overwhelmed by all the different reactions on the faces of his family. Lucretia lets out a long breath, eyes fixed on her plate. 

“You’re really tight with Carey and Killian, huh?” Lup says, her tone sharp. Kravitz gives her a sideways warning look. Angus had told Kravitz and Lup that the two women had helped him in investigating Kalen’s presence in Hurn, but he hadn’t expected the information to be thrown into the ring  _ now  _ with a table full of people who don’t know. Especially his mother, who finally looks up from her plate, one eyebrow raised. But she looks not at Angus, whose hands are suddenly occupied fidgeting with his fork; she looks at Lup. 

“We do go back a ways,” she says, thinking of the half-heart necklace in her hand not very long ago. “I did ask Carey to check on him,” she adds. 

Lup shoves a forkful of macaroni into her mouth and chews. “Did you ask her to help Ango here check on Kalen, too?” 

Very softly, Angus says, “Fuck.”

“Did I  _ what now?” _ says Lucretia, sitting a little straighter. Kenneth looks at her, then Angus, then Lup, and then decides that a big fern on the far side of the room is the most interesting thing for him to look at right now. Mavis just winces. 

Kravitz puts a hand on his face. “Lup.”

Lup just shrugs. “Sorry, guess I can’t keep up with  _ who knows what,”  _ she says, locking eyes with Lucretia.

“I realize that everyone assumes automatically that I’m some sort of scheming mastermind, but I did  _ not  _ ask Angus to do  _ any _ of this. I didn’t tell Taako to lie to you. I didn’t….” She trails off with a long sigh, looking up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” Angus says into the moment of silence. Lucretia just closes her eyes.

After a long, pregnant silence, Lup stands and leaves the table, clearing her plate with a mage hand and guiding it into the kitchen and onto the counter by the sink. After she steps out onto the veranda, Barry and Kravitz look at each other.

“Does… anyone want dessert?” Mavis offers clumsily when nobody else speaks. “I made— we have ice cream, and I tried to make those pastries Uncle Taako makes, but they didn’t rise all the way? They’re still good.”

“In a little bit, I think,” Kravitz says with a kind smile to ease her anxieties. “Thank you. I’m sure they are delicious. We’ll have to save one for Taako, won’t we?”

Mavis nods meekly, looking from Angus to Lucretia. The tension hasn’t much dissipated at all.

Lucretia looks at Angus: so many questions, so many worries.

“Carey?” she asks him. His whole face scrunches up apologetically, but before he can say anything, she simply shakes her head and again pushes back her chair. “You can— We can talk about this later, I suppose.” She looks to Mavis, offering a weary smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t eat more; this is very good, but I think…. Alright if I use my usual guest room?”

“Long as you don’t mind putting the sheets on yourself,” Merle shrugs, eyes following her as she walks around the table. She too sets her plate by the sink, but instead heads upstairs.

Kenneth looks around the table, then asks of no-one in particular, “Carey’s that dragonborn, right? She’s, uh….” He doesn’t quite know how to ask how she fits into all of this.

“Real competent woman, most times she’s getting everybody’s ass out of the fire. But, uh,” Merle says as he waves his fork in Angus’s direction, a piece of macaroni falling to the table. “Evidently she helped get us into it, too.”

Angus looks at Kenneth rather than Merle, saying, “She worked for Mom, at the Bureau, and she’s a friend.”

“So you, you talked to her about this whole…” Merle waves his tree arm expansively. “An’ she didn’t say to, oh, I dunno,  _ tell anybody _ what you were up to or nothing?”

Angus’s shoulders sag.

“‘Cause it’s not like not telling folks things isn’t already a bad habit around here, yeah?” Merle looks pointedly from Angus to Lup and Lucretia’s empty chairs.

“Dad,” warns Mavis.

“No, no, I get it. Stubborn like your pop, secretive like your mom. Real great habits. Gonna serve you real well.” He takes a bite, nodding as he chews. “Good luck with that, I guess.” Then he lets out a loud breath through his nose. “On the other hand, we’re all okay  _ now,  _ and that fucker ain’t, and I guess that’ll do.”

Angus frowns at Merle, nostrils flaring slightly. “Yeah I guess I did find that guy for you, huh, even if it was….” He trails off. “Yeah.” 

“Well,” Barry interjects, a little too loudly, “You all got him, and we’re all home safe, and this macaroni is damn good, so how about we just eat and…” He glances at Angus. “Just take it easy.”

As he says that, the door slams open again, and heavy footfalls come through the house into the dining room: a young dwarf with a patchy beard and twigs in his hair.

“Hey Mav, Pops,” and Mookie takes in the room, familiar faces with one new one, the two empty places, “Why’s everybody early to vacation, somebody die or something?” 

* * *

Kravitz wanders into the kitchen after dinner. Merle’s there, piling dishes in the sink and scraping food into the compost bin, and he looks up at Kravitz with a little nod.

“If yer not too busy, Mister Fancy-Pants, I could use a hand,” he says, then laughs. “Don’t take this one, though,” he adds, waving a plate with his soulwood arm. 

Kravitz laughs uncomfortably. Merle, for some reason, continues to blame Magnus for the loss of his arm; for this he’s grateful.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Merle,” he says instead. He takes the spot next to Merle and raises the counter to a height that’s agreeable to them both, then picks up the dishcloth and takes the wet plate from Merle’s hand. “Thank you for dinner. It’s kind of you to put us all up after the few days you all have had. I’m sure you’d rather be relaxing right now…”

“I’m putting you to work, ain’t I? But honestly, rather have everybody close by then just  _ poof!  _ off all at once. Be good if they get a little time to talk it through, ‘stead of just running off back to work right away.” He harrumphs as he hands Kravitz a salad bowl. 

Kravitz frowns, drying the large bowl slowly. “I suppose.” Magnus is off with Carey, surely in good hands, but he knows that the moment Taako is well enough he’s going to want to  _ poof!  _ off to Magnus immediately, and then onto the next thing. Anything to avoid conversation, as Taako does. “You think they’re going to talk about it?” 

_ It,  _ he thinks. He wonders what  _ it  _ is. They were captured? Imprisoned? He sets the bowl down and considers asking Merle, concerned with both Taako and Lucretia’s wellness, but one question at a time. 

Merle pauses, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Well, maybe I misspoke.  _ Talk,  _ dunno. But. You know, used to be, and this always surprises folks ‘round here, but they were thick as thieves. Especially when our  _ boy _ went and did something dumb, like he was prone to back then.” He laughs again. “Or now, I dunno. Ain’t talking, but it seemed to help.”

Kravitz hums and takes a glass from Merle’s hand to dry it. In the few times he’s opened up about his relationship with Lucretia, Taako has mentioned their closeness, mostly in the context of Magnus. There’s a certain sincerity that follows the people who love Magnus; Kravitz is well-acquainted with it now, he sees it so easily in Taako and Lucretia both.

“Taako has his way, doesn’t he.”

“Hooboy, that’s for sure. Ever had mushroom candy? I bet you haven’t, because it’s godawful, I got a cast-iron stomach, and I—” Merle makes a face in lieu of an actual description as he scrubs another glass, hands it to Kravitz, and grabs a handful of forks. “Anywho, when Maggie bit it on that ol’ mushroom plane, Taak made just a huge old pile of the stuff. Because, Magnus likes candy, right? An’ when Lucretia came around and just had to clean every damn thing in sight, he just — he just stayed with her, til she wore herself out. Was like that.”

Kravitz’s expression softens.  _ Of course  _ Taako did those things. The quiet thoughtfulness that Taako still attempts to mask, it makes Kravitz’s heart ache with the tenderness of it. At least the two of them had each other in those times, even without Magnus. 

Kravitz tilts his head towards Merle. “And the years where Taako…?” 

It’s strange to be uncomfortable talking about death. He knows their death counts, of course, and knows that Merle died exponentially more than Taako did. But still, perhaps selfishly, he can’t help but wonder what it was like for Merle, or Lucretia, or  _ Magnus _ to be without Taako.

“Well, don’t tell Lup, but we sure as shit didn’t eat as good,” Merle says. “And to be honest, a few of those times, I wasn’t there either.” He thinks distantly of a room with a long table and big windows, a never-ending sunset, the man in the sharp suit and the good shoes. “But you ain’t asking about cooking, I take it. Was never good, losing somebody, and with Taako…. I remember one time, some shit went down, and Lup went fucking ape-shit the whole rest of the cycle. No joking with that one for sure. Pissed off the whole year, Dav had to tell her to cool out or she was locked in her damn room. And Maggie, like always, ya know: what he could have done to stop it, shit like that. But Creesh?” He shook his head. “She’s always been prone to that, curl up and disappear. Mags did his best, I think, but…. Wasn’t great.” 

Taako has talked so much about being without Lup, Kravitz had never truly considered Lup without Taako. And of course, Magnus is always quick to blame himself, and from what he knows, Lucretia is just as quick to close herself off. Still, perhaps Lucretia and Taako had been even closer than he’d come to understand. Everyone knew the Story, of course, but he’d been left to place small, precious details that Taako had chosen to share within it. He still isn’t sure he’s gotten it all right. 

But there were those drawings, Lucretia’s drawings of the two of them, that Taako had hidden away for  _ years,  _ never destroyed, despite his openly-held years-long grudge. And there are the accidental conversations that Taako keeps emerging from, and the openness Kravitz sees in him now, and his  _ willingness _ , however reluctant, to let it hurt… He thinks of Taako in his lap on their porch, talking about  _ talking  _ to Lucretia, and Kravitz can’t help but feel proud. If Taako and Lucretia had been so close, it only spoke louder to the difference he sees in Taako now. 

“Keeping awful quiet there, fella; you seem a little surprised,” says Merle into the long silence. 

“Not…  _ surprised,”  _ Kravitz says slowly. “You must know that I’ve gotten only scattered and inconsequential details, though they never  _ really  _ are.” If he knows Taako’s nonsense in less than a decade of knowing him, Merle must be an expert. “I’m just putting it all together, I suppose.” 

“Nobody really knows either of ‘em, I don’t think, so don’t beat yourself up too much. Figures the kid would do something that finally kicks something loose, though.” He laughs as he hands the wet forks to Kravitz. “Told him it had to be their own way, but, ya know. Can’t all be patient like some folks.” 

“So you think this…?”  _ This what?  _ he questions himself again. This will change things? It has to, surely. He lets his question dissolve into the quiet kitchen. 

“Who’s to say. Known ‘em a hundred years, bound be surprised anyway. Just gotta have a little patience, a little hope.” He hands Kravitz the last dish and shuts off the water. “Can’t stay mad forever, yeah?” 

The corner of Kravitz’s mouth quirks into a smile. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we tend to do, this incorporates some details from outside of this series’ continuity. It’s not necessary to understand what’s going on here, but you may enjoy [Another Beach Year](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12754356) (Note from Kath/hops: it’s a vent fic and Taako’s a mess, so, CW for substance use/abuse, mental health themes, etc.) or [Until You Return](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14272455). (Really, Mavis in this series owes a great deal to her appearance in Another Beach Year.)


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends try to make sense of what’s happened. Magnus wins a game. Kenneth discovers the ocean.

Carey takes a long drink from her mug of beer, leaning back in her chair on two legs as she watches Magnus and Killian. They’re arm wrestling, again, like they pretty much always do anytime they go out. It’s familiar, it’s entertaining, it’s been long enough that there’s a pattern to it, to the way they taunt each other.

But as much as she loves her wife, as much as she’s  _ missed _ her wife, it’s not Killian that Carey sees in the chair opposite Magnus. Another woman should be sitting there, really. She remembers that night on the moon, years ago, tears rolling down Magnus’s face while he laughed about how easily Julia beat him, that first time. It’s not fair, really. Even though the man who caused her death is dead, it’s still not fair.

And they almost didn’t get him:  _ that  _ haunts her, the idea that they could have tried and failed? That they could have tried and failed and lost Magnus’s other loves? It’s a lot to process.

Her attention snaps back to Killian and Magnus as he lets out a grunt and slams Killian’s hand to the table. The small crowd of spectators from nearby tables let out a few cheers, one of them standing to clap Magnus drunkenly on the back. Magnus gets up to chat with him, but motions with his thumb in the direction of the restrooms to Carey, who nods. 

When he’s gone from the table, Killian hesitates for a moment before reaching out to brush Carey’s hand, then entwines their fingers. 

“Hey,” Killian says softly. “You’re spaced. You good?” 

Carey hums softly. “Will be. You know, just….” She takes a deep breath. “Didn’t exactly go how we figured. Almost lost the boss there. Would’ve been real hard to tell—” She inclines her head towards Magnus’s empty seat.

“What?” Killian says, brows raised. “When you said— I didn’t think you meant…” 

“Like, she was locked in a dungeon.”

“Shit.” 

“They were walking Taako off to—” She gestures with one claw across her throat. “Wasn’t for that orc guy, I don’t even know.” Another glance at the empty chair. “Fuck, man.”

Killian sweeps her thumb over the back of Carey’s hand, grateful to be feeling the map of scales. “Care,” she murmurs, unheard over the commotion of the bar. “We can— do you want to go? We can go, he’s good, we can all just hang at home.” 

She looks around the bar, the kind of warm rowdy environment that she instinctively associates with her friend. And at the same time, it’s a little overwhelming, after this long weird day. Two days? She almost can’t remember. Tomorrow she’s gonna sleep in for sure.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s— We’ve got beers at home, right?” 

“Yup, stocked up.” Killian nods thoughtfully. “Maybe we can play Fantasy Mario Battlewagon. It’s been a while, and he likes that one, probably enough to keep him distracted, yeah?” 

“Mr. Why Didn’t I Beat the Rainbow Bridge I Have Vehicle Proficiency? I think we can keep him busy for a while. And I could use a little extra distraction...as cute as it is watching you….” She leans forward and puts a hand on Killian’s bicep. “I could stand to  _ do _ something, too.” 

Killian smirks. “I mean, that’s one kind of stress relief.” 

Carey sticks out her tongue. “Later,  _ for sure.”  _ She drinks down the rest of her beer at once, just as Magnus returns. She hooks an arm in his. “Come on, bud; it’s my turn to kick your ass.” 

* * *

Lucretia doesn’t even try to go to sleep; once she’s showered and changed into a robe in the guest room closet, she goes to Taako’s room and takes up a spot in the chair by the bed. Not that there’s anything she can do; he’s gotten the healing he needs, and now what his body requires is sleep. But she’s not ready to leave his side, not after everything. 

He starts to stir, perhaps in the throes of a nightmare? She glances at the headband laying on the bedside table: it feels odd, now, to not be aware of his thoughts, to only know what she can see. She clears her throat and tries humming a few bars of a lullaby that he sang to her, years ago, when she was restless and sleep was too far away. She can’t remember most of the words, but the melody seems to be enough; he lets out a little breath and settles back to sleep. 

“That one’s his favorite, you know,” Lup says from the doorway, interrupting their quiet moment. “Even better with the words.” 

“Been a long time,” she says. 

Lup steps into the room with her arms folded, looking at Taako with an expression Lucretia can’t quite read. For a moment, she fears that Lup has come to finish their tense near-confrontation at the dinner table, but Lup doesn’t look all that angry anymore. Just sad. 

“What happened, Lucretia?” Lup asks softly as she glances up from the bed to look at her. There are so many more questions to ask, so many things she needs to know, but it has to start here. 

Lucretia doesn’t entirely know where to begin with an answer. “We got separated from the others,” she says. Almost without thinking she reaches for Taako’s hand, then pulls her own back into her lap. “He tried every way, to keep…. To do whatever he could.” She looks down at her hands, then up at Lup. “I wouldn’t have made it without him, I think.” 

Lup lowers herself onto the chest at the foot of the bed and closes her eyes, just breathing. She wants to believe that all the scenarios running through her mind are worse than the truth, but it doesn’t seem so. 

“He asked for Angus,” Lup says, letting the thought hang incomplete in the air between them. 

Lucretia nods. “That was…. That was the worst part, Kalen was—” She grimaces, then lets out a humorless laugh. “Awful, really. Everything that Magnus would have fought against with every instinct in his body, you know? And when he realized that Angus was…. Something….” She swallows, trying to still her breathing to keep from crying. “Something important, he just, that Zone of Truth, god, he kept digging, Lup, and Taako tried so hard, and I tried, and we couldn’t.” She has a stricken look in her eyes when she meets Lup’s gaze. “We couldn’t protect him.” 

Lup wants to know what happened, and how, and  _ why,  _ but Lucretia looks sick with it, and she can’t focus on anything but the throbbing ache of her own heart as she looks at her brother. 

“Little dude’s okay now. He was freaking out, but he figured it out in time, y’know. Gave us enough to get you guys out of there.” Lup sighs. “But you… Taako lied to me— and I’ll bitch him out about that later, don’t worry— but you kept this from me, too?” She holds up a hand as Lucretia opens her mouth to interject. “That sucks. Like, I’ll just say it, babe: that really  _ sucks _ .” 

“Oh, Lu. You’re right, of course you’re right. Honestly, I didn’t even figure on going myself.” She looks at Taako again, remembering him in Merle’s kitchen when she’d demurred:  _ You thought you were getting out of this that easy? _ And as rude as that sounded, what it meant was that she belonged there too. “They all…. They insisted, and I didn’t think…. And you’re right. I’d say old habits die hard, but I don’t even know if it’s that conscious. When he said he hadn’t….” She remembers his panic in those dungeon cells, and she doesn’t have words to even finish the thought. 

Tears blur Lup’s vision. “I just wish…” she says, another thought left unfinished between them, both of them too afraid of what the full truth means. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t he tell me? Why—” 

She’s just crying now. It doesn’t have all that much to do with Lucretia. It’s just easier to be upset with her about the present than to confront the fact that she’s been ignoring all of Taako’s red flags. 

Lup can barely get the words out. “What did I do wrong?” 

To Lucretia now, sitting beside Taako in the pocket spa feels so long ago and far away.  _ She’s happy _ , he’d said, and the pain in that, the isolation she’d heard in his voice, she hasn’t been able to forget. And she’d tried, obliquely, to talk to Lup, but perhaps the time for being oblique should have been long past.

Perhaps it’s not hers to say, but  _ not saying  _ has been at the root of so much.

“He said— I think he’s afraid of disturbing your happiness, afraid you won’t understand. He… I… There was so much, in that time you both were—”

“He told you that?” 

Something, something worse than grief, worse than anger, clamps around Lup’s heart and nearly stops it dead. After everything, he told Lucretia this before  _ her _ ? She knows Lucretia means well, that it’s not her fault, that Taako works in strange, roundabout ways… But they were ways that she used to understand. 

_ Used to,  _ she thinks, her hands folded helplessly in her lap where they once might have reached for his sleeping form for comfort. Her chest feels so tight that she’s afraid to draw breath. 

The urge to apologize crowds Lucretia’s throat and she swallows, hard. She feels their brokenness in her bones, the split between the twins a wreck to be laid at her feet. “He adores you,” she says finally. “I’m sorry he didn’t—”  _ Tell you, trust you; I’m sorry I did this to him. _ But those words feel wrong, self-pitying, drawing too much of it to herself. His own words come back to her:  _ I’m a better person when I’m with her. But I don’t think she’s better when she’s with me.  _

Lup buries her face in her hands as if to stop her tears with force alone, but she just sobs into the pressure of her palms. “What did I do?” she asks everyone and no one. The umbrella, the cave, the gauntlet, her note, left without even a goodbye, and— and how could she expect him to be the same? 

Lucretia stands then goes to sit beside her. Tentatively she puts an arm around Lup, who doesn’t react at all.

“It’s not your fault,” Lucretia murmurs. 

“No, it is. And I can’t keep pretending like it’s not.” 

Lucretia hums noncommittally. She looks sidelong at Lup’s tear-streaked face. “Well. I’m sure there’s plenty of blame to go around. I did try to encourage him to talk to you, you know. But….” She shrugs. “I think it would help if you said something. Gently, if you can?” 

Lup exhales through her nose, otherwise silent. Lucretia’s arm feels like lead around her waist. But she’s here, Taako’s here, everyone is alive, and the fucker who hurt Magnus is dead; for now, that’s all that matters. 

She leans her head against Lucretia’s shoulder. For a moment it’s like before, the touch and warmth of her familiar, Lup fitting into the crook of her shoulder like a puzzle piece. She longs for the simplicity of that time. 

“I’m just glad you’re safe,” Lup says softly. 

She takes one of Lucretia’s hands in both of her own and thinks to kiss it in apology for her temper, but before she can, Taako breaks the tension with a loud snore. She can’t help the laugh that bubbles up past the last of her tears. Lucretia chuckles too, and they’re just a sniffling, laughing heap at the end of Taako’s bed, and all Lup can do is thank Istus and RQ and Pan and whoever the hell else is out there in the Celestial that he’s still here to ruin all her tender moments after all. 

* * *

“Take that!” Carey crows as she throws her arms up in the air mimicking her avatar on the scroll in front of them, then pretends to twirl a mustache along with the lanky animated figure. Tinny music plays around them.

“You just got lucky that you got a blue shell, that’s not  _ real  _ victory.” Magnus sets his controller down with a little attitude and picks up his beer. “If we race again, I would  _ totally  _ win.” 

She snorts and turns to Killian. “Kils, babe, how many times has Maggie won when we’ve played Fantasy Mario Battlewagon?”

Killian makes a great show of tilting her head and looking off into the distance before she speaks. “Hmmmm? Twice, maybe? You are the best though, that’s why I don’t play with you anymore.” 

Magnus shakes his head. “You’re just pumping up that ego, this is gonna end poorly for us!” he exclaims as he tries to get onto his feet. He fumbles a little and settles for the edge of the couch, then points a finger at Killian. “I have ve- _ hic!”  _ he hiccups. “Vehicle proficiency.” 

Carey lolls back on the couch, waving her controller for emphasis. “Here’s the thing,” she declaims. “Fantasy Mario Battlewagon? Not actually vehicles. If you try to rely, rely on, uh….” For a moment, she loses her train of thought as she catches a glimpse of his half of the  _ best friends  _ necklace. She lets out a sigh. “Where was I? Naw, ok, so if you try to play like it’s a real battlewagon, that just won’t work, ferreal.”

“This theory again?” says Killian with a laugh.

“It’s true though, I promise.” She looks at Magnus with a calculated gleam in her eyes. “Ok, you try it my way, we’ll play one more, and if you don’t think about it being a vehicle, swear to Pan you might actually get close.” 

They pick up their controllers and start over, each picking their usual avatars: the purple-clad villain for her, the bright pink princess for him.

“Your pick for the race,” she says, thinking to give him the benefit of territory. Maybe she’s been too competitive.

Magnus trades his now-empty beer for the controller, throwing Killian one final  _ “I’m watching you”  _ gesture before she chuckles and disappears into another room. He scrolls through the colorful options before him and stops on the minecart track. “Home field. I  _ know  _ I can do this one. I drove an actual minecart once.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She pointedly does not remind him that he’s not supposed to be thinking about actual vehicles. “So you told me….” She trails off, looking at the cartoonish image, thinking of the rest of what he’d told her that night, after he got back from Refuge. She shakes her head, trying to push the thought away. “Let’s do it to it, then.”

For a moment, they’re both deep in concentration — Magnus keeping his cart from careening off the edge of the track, Carey at first trying not to get too far ahead, but she can’t help herself from her usual strategies. But then, also, looking sidelong at him as he’s focused on the game, his tongue stuck out between his teeth. He loves telling the story of how they outran the purple worm, how madcap that was, but even now he doesn’t talk much about what happened before that, what the Chalice had offered him….

The cruelty of it, that’s how it strikes her now: his own Relic, offering him  _ that.  _ And she looks towards the kitchen; if something had ever happened to Killian, and someone,  _ something _ offered her the chance— and her cart goes flying off into space on a sharp turn.

“Too bad for you!” laughs Magnus, using a magic missile to rocket farther ahead as her battlewagon is dropped back onto the track.

She’s thinking of the mine in the mountains near Hurn, the hulking fortress, and Kalen, bound down at the end. Her own chain: she doesn’t know shit about magic, but she’s glad she had something the boss could use. Too bad it couldn’t — and she slides too far sideways, hits a banana peel, and  _ fuck.  _ She grips the controller tighter as she restarts again.

_ Doesn’t bring Julia back,  _ she thinks,  _ and that fucking sucks.  _ She wishes there was more, something, anything. She lets out a long sigh again, knees bouncing restlessly as she hunches forward. At least this time she doesn’t fuck up the turn, but as she’s rounding the corner, the celebration music starts up, and Magnus lets out a ridiculous squeal in the style of the princess. 

“Booyah!” Magnus bellows, hopping up and tossing his controller onto the couch in triumph. “Told you. Minecart master, get at me!” 

Carey looks at him as he shuffles back and forth in victory, squealing once again in an uncomfortably accurate Princess Peach impression. 

“That’s a hell of a laugh you got there, bud,” she says.

“Julia’s was better, but it’ll do,” he huffs with a smile as he flops back onto the couch once again, looking down at cross-legged Carey on the floor. “She could do impressions of all the characters. Is that lame? I loved it.” 

He moves to reach for his beer and then realizes it’s long gone. Carey shakes her head and hands him the water bottle from the floor beside her. 

“Bud, that’s the fuckin’ sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. Wish I—” She swallows. Something about the way he says it, so casual; almost breaks her heart. She wishes she could tell him what they did. “You know.” 

“Yeah. I know.” 

They’re quiet for a while, the Fantasy Nintendo music playing quietly from the screen beside them. Magnus smiles, his eyes genuine but a little distant. 

“You would have gotten along so well. Like, I know I already said that a million times, but you would have. We had so much fun— she was such a better arm wrestler than me.  _ Me!  _ Bet she would’ve beat Killian too.” Magnus laughs, a little choked up, but not sad. 

“Whatever you say,” she says, trying to keep herself from being choked up too. “My gal’s the best, and we both know it.” She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Ugh. Sucks.” 

Again, the image of Kalen sitting at the long table, mocking Magnus. Nothing will ever be good enough for that, not even death. 

“It’s just not fair, really, but….” She shrugs. “I’m sorry.” 

“Hey,” he says, peering down at her. He scoots off the couch and clumsily sits down on the floor beside her. “Nothing to be sorry for. She was…” Carey notices the way his jaw tightens, but it passes and he exhales softly. “She was an amazing woman. And you’re an amazing friend.” 

He wraps a huge arm around her shoulders and pulls her in tight. 

“You too, bud.”

* * *

Mavis climbs the stairs up to the attic, still turning over the day’s events in her mind. It’s not like there haven’t been tense conversations in the manor before, or at her mom’s house when she was a kid. She’s seen her dad give Angus the sharp side of his tongue before, too. But she’s never seen Uncle Taako in such bad shape; she’s never seen Aunt Lup angry like this. She’s never seen Aunt Lucretia  _ frightened. _

So she’s retreating to her thinking place, the little bit of roof she can get to from the attic window. There’s a good view from there, and it’s quiet. But the attic door is open and the light is on, and she can feel the ocean breeze coming through the window.

“Hello?” she calls out.

“Hey,” and it’s Angus’s voice from out on the roof. She picks her way around the boxes to the window and pokes her head out. He’s sitting with his knees curled to his chest, and he looks at her with the faintest frown on his face. She can see traces of tears on his cheeks, but he’s not crying now.

“Mind if I come sit?”

He shrugs. He’s a little relieved it’s Mavis, if he’s being honest. Anyone else, and he’d feel obliged to explain too much, to put on a brave face, or to brace against — frustration? Accusations? Well-earned anger, probably.

“Dunno if I’m good company,” he says, “but sure.”

She clambers out and sits cross-legged beside him. For a long time, they’re both silent, watching clouds skim over the moons. The only sounds are the distant crashing of waves and, closer to the house, leaves rattling in the breeze.

“I didn’t think it was going to be a trap,” he says finally.

“I know,” she replies.

He puts his chin down on his knees. “I should’ve—”

“Hey.” She puts a hand on his arm; she can’t reach his shoulder anymore, now that he’s gotten so tall. “You couldn’t have known—”

He shakes her off. “But Mavis, I’m supposed to be…. I was detecting better than that when I was ten years old.” His frown deepens. “Why the hell didn’t I figure it out sooner?”

“You did figure it out, though.”

His hands curl into fists. “Too late. So stupid.”

She looks at him, while he continues to stare angrily out into nothing. She wants to hug her friend until that look fades, but he’s too deeply curled into himself.

“You got Uncle Krav and Auntie Lup there just in time, sounds like,” she says softly.

“But they shouldn’t have, it shouldn’t have….” He sighs. 

“Maybe. Why’d you do it?” She’s only been able to pick up little bits and pieces — they went to kill someone who hurt Uncle Magnus a long time ago, and for some reason he couldn’t do it himself. Which doesn’t make any sense, but she’s learned that sometimes it’s just that way with that part of her family.

Another sigh. “Something my dad asked your dad and Taako to do, a long time ago? Like not in the old times, but when they worked for Mom?”

“Who was this guy?”

“He, uh, he killed, I guess she’d be my stepmom? It’s weird.” He rolls his eyes. “You know, like everything else. And like, Dad had to forget him, which is some magic thing, from when Merle lost his eye?”

She nods. Pops doesn’t talk about it much, but she knows there was some bad stuff that happened right before the Day.

“So I got some information, because of the work I used to do, and I thought….” He trails off with a grimace.

“You wanted to help,” she adds.

“Yeah. And then I thought maybe, two birds with one stone?”

Mavis laughs almost despite herself. Angus squints at her, then laughs as well. He pushes her with his shoulder, but with her low dwarven center of gravity, she hardly budges. 

Angus’s smile fades. “You know what I mean. If mom was the one who brought the news to Taako—”

“—and my dad,” interjects Mavis.

“And your dad, well maybe they’d…. Maybe it’d be like, something they could do together, Taako and Mom, and then maybe they’d get along a little more?”

Mavis thinks back to Lucretia and Taako on the veranda a few days earlier. “Seems like they were already doing better,” she says.

“Dad made them talk back before graduation. I don’t know what happened, but yeah, they were okay at that. Which…. I didn’t even need to do all that to ‘get them together’, huh?” His voice has a bitter edge as he air-quotes. 

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so melodramatic. I dunno about those two, but Pops seems pretty glad they got to, you know. And that half-orc dude they found seems okay.” She looks back out at the moonlight silvering the lawn below.

Angus lets out a wet sigh and wipes his eyes. “They’re pretty good at that, huh?” He thinks back to magic lessons on the moon, to long afternoons researching in the library with the Director.

Mavis puts her arm around him, as far as she can — which isn’t very far — and pats his back. “It’s gonna be okay, friend,” she says. He makes a little skeptical noise. “Promise.”

* * *

“S’weird,” Carey says, tucking her nose up under Killian’s jaw as they lay in bed together. “One minute we were there, and like, a shit-ton of guys, and then you go through this rift, and it’s kinda cold, and then boom: Merle’s fuckin’ front porch.”

“So, like, teleporting?” 

She scrunches up her face. “Naw, weird reaper stuff. I mean, I guess it’s  _ like _ teleporting? I dunno, magic, right? They had those big-ass scythes, is all I know about it. At least we didn’t have to walk all the way back out.” 

“That’s good, right?” Killian murmurs, a little twinge of worry lingering in her tone. “Compared to… the rest?” 

The details of Carey’s half-drunk recollection of their  _ adventure  _ flit around her mind. It’s hard, trying to wrap her head around it, the scope of it, the danger they’d been in. She runs a finger over one of the small horns atop Carey’s head, then kisses it. 

“Boy, that’s. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Nick of time and all that.” She huffs a breath into Killian’s neck. It’s warm and safe here, and there is far away. “And we got him, so that’s cool.” 

“Right. And  _ you’re _ cool?” 

Carey groans. “Fuck, Kils, I don’t even know. I thought it would...you know, we hang out with Maggie and it’s like: naw, that didn’t do shit. We killed a dude, doesn’t bring her back, and hell, he doesn’t even know. So, feels weird.” 

Killian lets out a long breath through her nose. “Yeah. It sucks,” she says, wanting to say more but coming up empty. She reaches down and takes Carey’s hand between both of hers, then kisses it. “But you still did it, and everyone is okay, right? So that’s something. That’s… if he remembered all that shit, he’d be damn proud.”

“Yeah…. Might not be too proud we encouraged kiddo to get involved.” She whistles softly through her teeth. “They got  _ pissy _ when they found out about Angus was the one who found Kalen, and I made the mistake of saying we talked to him. To Taako at least, boss doesn’t know about it...yet, anyway. Thought he was going to bite my head off.” 

Killian raises her brow and blinks. “Taako knows? Well, uh, either he’s taking it to the grave or  _ literally everyone  _ is going to know by tomorrow, so…” 

“Just brace for that one, I guess. Kinda glad he’s there and we’re here.”

“You think he’s gonna tell Lucretia?”

Carey flops back and stares up at the ceiling. “I can’t even begin…. He fucking hugged her, when we got her out of that dungeon? So I don’t even know.”

As Carey finishes her thought, Killian sits up. “Wait,  _ what?”  _ she laughs a little. “Bullshit.” 

“As Pan is my witness.” She puts a hand over her heart. “Some weird shit went down in there. You  _ know  _ how they are, and something, yeah, something. What, I don’t know, not gonna ask, but something.” She snorts. “So probably we’re fucked, if they’re actually going to talk to each other.”

Killian goes through a few possible scenarios in her mind that range from stern gratitude to getting magic missiled off the moon. “I guess we’ll get there when we get there,” she says, still laughing quietly to herself. “She’s probably gonna be pissed.”

“Yeah, I wonder. She’s got that look, you know, when she’s got a plan underway. Looked like Kalen was trying to set himself up pretty much the same deal way the fuck out there. I figure she’s gonna send the Bureau pretty soon.” She scoots up to look at Killian. “Oh, hey so, uh, we got you a recruit, I think? That guy of Kalen’s that flipped? I’m pretty sure…. I think Lucretia offered him a job.”

Killian squints, then leans away so she can look down at Carey. “One of his guys?” she asks, trying not to sound too suspicious and failing. “...Is he cool?” 

“He did okay. Pretty sure he had a shit life leading up to, you know. Like I said, he saved Taako and the boss both, which he totally did not have to. Shoulda seen him with that big dumb sword, looked nervous as hell.” She looks back at Killian, remembering the first time they met and those early days on the moon. “Sides, the boss, I mean Lucretia, seems to think he’s got something, and she’s got a knack for that, right? Gave  _ us  _ a chance, back in the day.” 

Killian smirks and leans down to kiss her. “Yeah,” she says softly with another kiss, breaking into a smile. “She did.” 

* * *

Kenneth spends most of the night tossing and turning. The guest bed he’d been offered, other than being a bit too small for him, is comfortable enough; certainly more so than the bunks at the fortress, anyway. He doesn’t have much else to compare to, but this doesn’t seem so bad. 

It’s not the mattress that keeps him up, but everything else. Each time his mind dips back into the constant reel of his recounting of the day, he feels so dizzy that he has to open his eyes and reorient himself with the square of soft moonlight coming through the window. 

He sits up and rubs his eyes; he doesn’t  _ miss  _ the dirty barracks, the crowded spaces, the smells of the mining camps back in the hills where he’d grown up. But there’s part of him that longs for home, if only because he doesn’t belong here. Dinner had been tense, to say the least. Everything had happened so fast when he decided to turn on Kalen that he never had a moment to consider the alternative he was choosing: entering the tangle of the heroes of Faerun, and in some way, becoming part of their story. 

But even if he wants to go back now, he can’t. He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and takes a deep breath. Lucretia’s offer crosses his mind again, as does the dragonborn’s guidance to take the opportunity. Every time he thinks about it, he feels like he’s being dragged in twelve different directions. He wants to go home, and he wants to start over, and he wants to be here, and he wants to be on the moon, at the Bureau, just to see what all the fuss is about, just to see what it’s like to look down at the world from somewhere impossible. 

_ All _ of it feels impossible. There are so many opportunities in front of him that he can’t think about them all without feeling completely inadequate and overwhelmed. He gets up and paces, wonders if anyone else is awake, wonders if anyone would notice if he left. Maybe he’s played his part and this isn’t where he belongs. He laces up his boots, and despite his attempts to be light footed in the hallway, he makes too much noise; his stomach drops as he waits for someone else to exit their guest room to catch him there.

After a few moments of stillness, nobody comes. He sighs and walks slowly down the stairs, thinking more about Lucretia’s offer and Carey’s advice. A rogue of her caliber sticking around has to mean that the work is good, and, hopefully, the boss is good, too.

As he moves through the house, now all quiet and dark, all the food and plates and commotion of their gathering long gone, he feels even more like a stranger. He tries to picture something after this that’s home, but he can’t. Hurn was never really home, not in the way it should have been. Kalen had given him a shot, but with distance he knows now that it was just an easy way for him to fill ranks: scooping up promising half-orc kids with dead parents and two arms to hold a sword.

Exhaustion sweeps over him as he looks to the dark line of the ocean through the window. He’s confused, mostly, still trying to figure out what the hell just happened to no avail. He’s tired and sore and uncertain, but not bad. All things considered, not bad. 

Without thinking, Kenneth sucks in a breath, pushes open the door to the veranda, and quietly walks down the tall flight of wooden stairs down to the sand. 

The beach feels weird below his feet, sinking and shifting around his boots as he tries to walk. There’s sand back home, (and,  _ home _ , he thinks, is Hurn still home?) but not like this, not so much, and certainly not the ocean beside it. His darkvision allows him to see where he’s walking. He almost doesn’t even need it with the light of the two moons above. 

Thoughtlessly, he walks to the shore. The surf is strong, somehow more powerful and ominous in the dark. 

His instinct is to leave. His skill set was useful to the Birds when they needed it, and they were probably just being nice on account of he kind of messed up his whole life doing this and he’s got no fucking clue what he’s going to do now. He heaves a big sigh and watches the waves roll in, over and over and over. 

There’s not a lot that scares Kenneth Bonebreaker. Bothers, angers, gets on his nerves, sure, but with the quick and dirty upbringing he had, there had been little room for fear. Little  _ time  _ for it. But if there’s anything that can make him afraid, genuinely, it’s simply not knowing. And right now, he doesn’t really know anything, and he kind of hates it. 

He’s dwarfed beneath the endless sky and beside the endless sea. His stomach twists as he looks up at the moons again and focuses on the smaller of the two. 

Is there harm in giving Lucretia’s offer a try? If he decides he doesn’t belong there either, he can just leave. It’s not like he has many other options readily available. Another deep breath and he’s kicking off his boots and tossing them aside, sinking his feet into the warm sand and feeling the breeze, salty and cool, on his face. 

Everything about this place is new. And despite his best efforts to put forth a facade of normalcy and gratitude for the things being offered and provided to him, he’s still so scared beneath it all. He doesn’t like it; he knows nothing of what he’s doing or what he’s  _ going  _ to do. But he supposes he doesn’t have to know. At least, not in the middle of the night. 

He walks closer to the damp sand where the water rolls in and out. He’s never seen water _move_ like this before, only ever heard about it from others who had been to the coast themselves. He’s not sure what will happen if he touches it, but he _wants_ to know, even if he’s pretty freaked out by the way it crashes on its own accord. The roar of it is loud up close, but he’s got his eyes on the moons again. The Bureau, there as its own mysterious little world. Everyone back at the fortress had some shit to say about it, or about Lucretia, in particular, but maybe it could be...

He lets the thought trail away on its own before he rolls up his pants up his calves and stands with one short breath. Kalen’s words, the vicious look on his face on the other side of the huge flaming sword (which, what the  _ fuck? _ ) echo in his mind. He wonders if these people are anything like the people he’s always known. Was Kalen right then? Will they screw him over, cast him out, find his value in how many skulls he can smash? That has never been his thing, but Hurn had shoehorned him into it long ago, before he had a chance to say otherwise. And now what? A chance at something entirely new?

_ Yes _ , something in him answers, and he listens. 

He walks into the wet sand and lets the water roll over his feet, then drag back out to crest and crash again. It’s a little too cool, but not uncomfortable, and the tide is strong, but he can handle it. It’s  _ nice.  _ It’s better than he’d imagined, back when he was so far away from any other way of living and only had the lives of others to imagine from. He wades in past the surf, stumbling a little over the waves and the rocks beneath his feet, and he’s getting his pants wet but he doesn’t really give a shit, and he’s standing there in the goddamn ocean beside a house full of the heroes of Faerun and he has no idea how he got there, but there are worse places he could be.

Almost knee-deep in the water and bathed in the moonlight, Kenneth clenches and unclenches his fists. Another deep breath of the salty air. He’s silhouetted by the reflection of the moons on the water, small, smaller than he’s ever been, just one person in the huge world who had just made a choice to do what he hopes is the right thing. He thinks it is. 

He’ll take the job in the morning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So…Fantasy Mario Battlewagon. This was hops’s idea, and usually epersonae is a little be more strict about keeping to a fantasy setting— as much as one can do, given Griffin. BUT. epersonae also loooooves Mario Kart, and more than that, could not pass up the opportunity to do a vehicle proficiency goof. (That ended up more serious than we figured going in.) So yeah, Fantasy Mario Battlewagon. 
> 
> And wow, we’re almost done, huh? Thanks for all the kudos and comments, it’s meant so much to both of us. Again, we’re going to do some kind of meta/liner notes thing once hops is through finals, so if there’s anything you’re curious about, hit us up on tumblr at polyblaster or epersonae.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea at dawn, a memory shared, a quiet moment together.

“Just a reconnaissance team to start with, I think,” Lucretia says, keeping her voice low so as not to wake Taako. “I’m not sure what the local reaction will be, although I know a few names of folks to start with.” She pauses to listen to the voice on the other end, shifting slightly in her chair by the bed. “No, of course Brad, no I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, I just….” She chuckles at his reply: he knows her perhaps a little too well by now. “Thank you, I know it’ll be in good hands.” 

There’s a soft stirring beside her, and then: “Some people are trying to  _ sleep  _ here.” 

She covers the stone with her hand and looks sheepishly at him. “My apologies, I thought you were, and I just wanted to get a jump on things….”

Taako turns over and cranes his neck, squinting out the window. The world outside is just barely visible as dawn makes its slow approach. He makes a noise of disgust. “Couldn’t even wait ‘til morning, fuckin’ workaholics,” he says, only half-joking and sounding a little faint. He tries to sit up, but as his face twists into a pained expression, he lays back down. He sighs. “Fuck.”

She frowns, about to speak, then the voice on the stone says, _ “Madame?” _ She nods to Taako before speaking into it again. “If you’ve got all that, I’ll be in touch later. Might be back…” She looks out the window, then back at Taako. “I don’t know. Check with Alex if you don’t hear from me.” Brad says his goodbyes, and she tucks the pendant back under her shirt collar.

“Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have. Can I get you anything?”

He exhales, eyes closed peacefully, his hair messy and splayed out on the pillows. “You know, I’ve had my eyes on this pair of Fantasy Louboutins…”

She laughs. “We haven’t gone on a clothes jaunt in a while—” She stops short, trying to remember when that even would have been. Twenty years ago? Thirty? Before— before all of it. She sighs.

Taako’s expression remains the same, eyes still shut. “Obviously. You think I’d stand for all that blue garb?”

“I suppose not. It’s not really your color.” When she closes her eyes, she sees the spinning wheel of Wonderland, the symbol of the eye, just before she lost her color vision for good. “But now that we’ve established that we’re not going to Fantasy Nordstrom’s, would you like a glass of water? Or do you want me to get….” She pauses, not sure whether to say  _ Kravitz  _ or  _ Lup. _

“Nah, don’t wake them,” he says. He’s sure they can wait before they grill him, and he doesn’t want to disturb them at this hour, anyhow. “But yeah, water’s probably good.”

“I could also make us some tea, although I’m not sure what’s in Merle’s cupboards.” 

“In theory he  _ should  _ have some Taako Brand everything up in there, but whatever. Take a look-see?”

She stands, placing a hand on her lower back and grimacing a little as she stretches. “Send a search party if I’m not back in five,” she says on her way out the door.

When she’s gone, Taako sits up slowly. His wounds are healed, of course, thanks to Merle and Kravitz’s combined efforts, but he’s still sore as hell, and despite his long rest, he’s exhausted, too. He sits on the edge of the bed for a moment and gathers himself, hand on his forehead. Reeling a little, the past few days come back to him in fragments: the dungeon, the band, Lucretia, Angus, and  _ Kalen _ , sneering, mocking, dead.

He blinks and reorients himself, then stands. He wavers slightly before getting his footing and grabbing an ill-fitting robe from the closet. If he weren’t so tired he probably would have transmuted it into something a bit more  _ Taako,  _ but he doesn’t care enough now.

He slips down the hall into the bathroom, taking time to clean up a little, assess the damage. All things considered, he looks like his usual self, save for needing a shower. He wonders absentmindedly if his Disguise Self pendant got lost in the shuffle; that’s a problem for another day.

When he steps back into the hall, the only sound is the floorboards creaking beneath his feet. He turns to go back to his room, but hesitates and walks in the other direction once more. 

He nudges the door to Lup and Barry’s usual room open just a crack, peers inside, and  _ yes,  _ they’re there, asleep in their usual tangled heap. He lets out a small sigh of relief, then pauses before moving to the door beside it and doing the same. 

Angus snores softly, stirring a little at the slight squeak of the door’s hinges. The worry that’s strangled Taako through all their trouble finally releases its grip on his throat, allowing him to breathe again.

He lingers at the door beside it, knowing that it’s Magnus’s, and Magnus isn’t here, but Taako wishes he was. He opens it a bit and his heart leaps for just a moment at the sight of a figure in the bed. But it’s not Magnus there; it’s Kravitz, sleeping in his human form out of habit.

Taako swallows, ridding himself of the emotion rising in his throat, then smiles and closes the door again. As he does, he hears Lucretia’s footsteps coming up the stairs. 

“You’re up,” she says as she comes into the hall carrying a tray with two steaming cups. She wants to say that he’s looking better, but doesn’t want to draw attention to the glamour he hasn’t yet cast this morning. But he does look a bit more rested, and that eases her spirits. She glances towards Angus’s door. “He’s still asleep?”

Taako nods, hesitating for a moment before taking a few steps forward to return to his room. He sits on the edge of his bed and takes the steaming mug that she offers him. The sweet sharp smell of cinnamon and orange rises around him.

“I had Carey send him,” she says. “Made dinner a little...awkward, but—” She takes a deep breath. “So good to see him, really.”

Taako hums as he takes a sip. Perfect, as usual, though he’ll never admit, not even after… 

His thoughts stall out for a moment, whatever response he had waiting a moment ago now completely gone. He feels the muted memory of his panic, his helplessness, and Lucretia’s voice, there in his head, telling him that Angus would be okay. It feels surreal enough that he’s not even sure it actually happened. So, he just takes another sip of the tea and savors the familiar flavor, surprised but also  _ not  _ surprised that she’d remembered.

She takes a sip herself; she’s been drinking it occasionally in place of her usual rose, and was pleased to find a dusty box in the back of a shelf full of strange herbal mixes in Merle’s kitchen. There’s just a bit of a bite to the spice of it.

She hesitates in the doorway. “As long as you’re up, maybe….” She taps the cup with her nails. “Looks like it’s going to be a nice sunrise.” 

A smile just barely touches his lips. “I suppose I can humor you...”

They go downstairs quietly and walk out onto the porch. It’s colder than Taako assumed it would be, but he just draws the robe tighter around himself, pulls the chain on the porch swing to a height suitable for them both, and sits.

Lucretia lets the heat of the cup seep into her fingers as she steps outside. For an almost imperceptible beat, she pauses before she sits beside him, jostling the swing so that they nearly bump shoulders. The pre-dawn light suffuses the air around them, reflected on the waves in the distance.  She tries not to think of those moments when everything seemed lost, but they loom too large.

“We made it,” and her voice is soft with wonder. 

Taako can’t bring himself to look at her. He stares down at the shape of his reflection in his tea, then nods. There are tears, somewhere, but he can’t quite reach the feeling. “Yeah,” he says simply and hopes that it doesn’t sound as cracked as it feels.

He wonders about Kenneth, if they left him in the fortress or told him to come with. The rush of gratitude that comes with the thought of Kenneth’s help overwhelms him. If anyone else had been sent to walk Taako out, he’d be dead by now. He thinks of Lucretia there in the dungeon, how she promised  _ we’ll have tea again soon.  _ And now they are, mugs in hand. Still, the guilt of it, the look on her face as they led him away and left her there alone, lingers. 

Taako draws a shallow breath, holding the tea in his lap. “I… You know I was gonna come back, right? Like, I wasn’t gonna just…”

She nods, feeling the lump in her throat too heavy to allow words. And in her mind, she remembers the same: Kalen, that last time in the dungeon, looking so pleased, so smug. Feeling her trust evaporate into terror. She takes another sip. 

His guilt boils in his stomach. They’re here and alive, but... “I’m sorry,” he blurts out, his whole body tense. He clutches his mug and stares out at the water, taking a deep breath of the ocean air. “I just couldn’t think of any other way to… to save…” 

“You had to think of Angus,” she says, eyes on the distant horizon. “And it worked, with a bit of luck in there. A bit of Istus, maybe, the right person in the right place.” 

He laughs a little. The breeze cools a tear he hadn’t noticed on his cheek. “Yeah, well… yeah. We’re here. And that dickwad is dead, so…” 

“Thank you for letting me— even with everything, I’m so glad I could help. For her sake.” Taako’s final words to Kalen are still so much, reverberating in her heart. 

His breath catches in his throat as he remembers the image of Julia, and Magnus, and Raven’s Roost as it had once been, small fragments of memory he’d caught from Lucretia’s mind… It’d been so fast, but he  _ saw _ Julia, and for the first time, put a face to her name. For a brief moment he thought killing Kalen would be enough to snuff out his grief of a decade without Magnus, of never knowing the woman he should have known. But it wasn’t, it’s not, and he can’t stop his bottom lip from trembling. 

“You…” Taako inhales, hands wrapped tightly around his mug. “You were there, at their wedding?” 

Her jaw clenches. She was— she was weak, she’d been trying to leave them alone, all of them, but when she heard he was getting  _ married _ … She couldn’t help it. She missed him, she wanted him to be happy, she shouldn’t have gone, she had to go.

“In disguise, but yes.” She takes a deep breath. “I saw them….” And she grips the mug even tighter, feeling the little pulse in her jaw.

Taako opens his mouth but nothing comes out. A dozen feelings push and pull in all different directions, all at once.  _ She was there. She saw them.  _ He burns red from his cheeks to the tips of his ears. Anger, jealousy, those feelings are there, and perhaps dominating. But beneath that, some tiny inkling of joy remains.

“I just wish I could have…” he trails off, warding off his tears. He’s not very successful, but he’s silent as the wind stirs and the horizon glows with the impending sunrise. He wishes he could have been there. He  _ should have  _ been there.

She watches him out of the corner of her eye.  _ Why is he asking now? _ And then, the image of Magnus and Julia dancing comes to her, but overlaid with Kalen’s destruction, and— the band. The connection they’d shared was still active then. She listens to the distant waves and wind, to the sound of his breathing.

“It’s not much, but….” Again she hesitates before turning to look at him directly. “I would share it with you, if you wanted that… If not, I understand….” She resists looking away, instead taking in his tired features, the tears welling in his eyes.

“I— I—” he stammers, then closes his mouth again, and when he sees her looking at him, he closes his eyes, too. It pulls him apart as he debates it: he doesn’t want to look so vulnerable, doesn’t want to need this from her, even after everything. But he does. He can barely make himself say it. “Yes.” 

The word is barely out of his mouth before she jumps from the swing. “It’s on your bedside table,” she says, afraid he’ll change his mind if she hesitates even a moment. “I’ll be right back.” She slips through the house and upstairs like a ghost, passing closed doors until she reaches his guest room. The band is still where Kravitz had left it, and she hurries downstairs just as quickly, until she’s back on the porch, holding it out to him with a hand that almost trembles.

He takes it and slowly wraps it around his head, tying it at the nape of his neck. The connection returns as it had in the fortress; he knows he has to say something, but he comes up empty. He wipes his hand over his face.  _ “Just gonna stand there and look at me, or…?” _

She laughs and takes the empty spot on the swing.  _ “Sorry, I didn’t intend to make it  _ even more  _ awkward.”  _ A silent pause.  _ “Are you sure?” _

_ “Just… before I change my mind. ‘Cause you know I will…”  _ He doesn’t mean for her to hear it, but they’re his thoughts, and she hears them all the same.  _ “So, do the honors, I guess.”  _

She takes a long trembling breath. In all honesty, she hasn’t let herself really experience this memory in years, maybe ever. It’s too painful, given everything before and since. She closes her eyes, and it’s spring, everything green and blooming, and she’s walking on a street she’s only been on once, and that was simply to say farewell. The Craftsmen’s Corridor, it’s hung with bunting and full of people; there’s music playing. In an open courtyard, a gazebo, intricately carved, surrounded by dogwood trees in bloom. She doesn’t need to approach to know that handiwork; there’s something in the sinuous shapes that reminds her of tendrils floating in a tank.

In the present, her hand clenches. Beside her, Taako draws a sharp breath, seeing everything through her eyes with his own shut tight.

Lucretia doesn’t see them at first: there’s so many people here, and they all know  _ him _ , they all know  _ her _ . They’re both surrounded by people offering congratulations. People who want to get close to their happiness. But she can hear his laugh, a sound she would know anywhere. A sound that stops her in her tracks. She almost leaves, then. It’s too much; she’d been weak. As usual, she should have left well enough alone.

But the crowd is surrounding her, and someone offers her a plate of food, someone else welcomes her to Raven’s Roost. They all have such good things to say about Magnus and Julia and the overthrow of Governor Kalen.  _ Couldn’t’ve happened to better folks, them getting together like that. _ She moves through the crowd evading a question about how she knows the happy couple, a mumble and a nod and a little movement away. She’s about to cry, but half the people here are crying. 

Taako feels the emotion swelling in his own throat, too, and he can’t help it. In her memory, abruptly: Magnus is looking at her, and it’s such an odd angle, because this disguise is shorter than she is, and he has no idea who she is. He hands her a glass of wine, because he’s handing them out to everyone. She wrenches her gaze away from him—  _ don’t stare, you can’t stare _ — to look at Julia. 

Taako can’t stop the outpouring of it now, his resentment, his anger, his grief, all the time he spent wondering about all the ways it could have been if things were  _ different.  _ But Julia is everything, everything he knew she’d be. It’s a cliche, isn’t it? To talk about a woman being radiant at her wedding. But she is, flushed and grinning, in a dress that shows off the arms of a woman who can forge a sword and wield a hammer, her hair tied back; she’s absolutely radiant. They’re so gracious, even as they have eyes only for each other.

Beside Lucretia, Taako can’t stifle the sob that escapes him, and he gives into his tears. He covers his face with one hand and cries, lets himself cry, because he can’t do anything else. 

And in her memory, Lucretia backs away wordlessly as someone calls out for the couple to dance. The last she sees of them is that: Magnus with Julia in his arms, dancing. He lifts her, and now she’s laughing, and the red bandana slips from her hair and flutters away to catch in the limbs of a dogwood tree.

When Lucretia opens her eyes, tears are running down her face. She looks over at Taako, his mug on the porch beside him, his head in his hands, just crying. She doesn’t know what to say, afraid anything she does will be taken the wrong way. Instead, she takes a long drink of her tea, even though it’s only lukewarm, letting her own tears fall unattended. 

Finally,  _ “That’s pretty much it, I’m sorry.”  _

He raises his head and takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He keeps the image of Julia at the front of his mind, trying to burn it there forever. He’s terrified to forget. 

_ “Thank you,”  _ he thinks back, unable to speak.  _ “Thank you.”  _

She puts a hand on his shoulder, tentative but solid.  _ “I’m sorry there’s not more, I’m sorry, I wish— I wish I’d known, I wish I’d done something— I wish I hadn’t—”  _ If she were speaking, perhaps she could have stopped.  _ I wish we could have known her.   _ And now she does stop, abruptly self-conscious again, swallowing the rest of the thought to try to give him a little space. 

He’s dizzy with it as he tries to orient himself with the slats of wood beneath his feet. “Me too,” he says aloud, another wave of emotion knocking him down. He leans into her touch, then just slumps against her, wishing for what he couldn’t have, what he should have had, what  _ they  _ should have had.

She puts her arm around him. There’s no words, simply the two of them crying in the early morning light, surrounded by fragments of memories, old and new.

“I wish we could tell him,” she says finally.

Taako takes a shuddering breath. “I know,” he says finally, looking out at the sun climbing over the horizon. “The one time I have no choice but to keep the hot goss to myself.” He laughs a little bit, wiping his tears, not yet withdrawing from her embrace.

“And the one time I would rather  _ not  _ keep a secret,” she replies. “But here we are.”

Taako swallows, her arm around him suddenly heavy. He withdraws slightly and pushes the band back to hold more of his hair. “Sorry, I’m probably still full dungeon stank right now.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it….”

Taako snorts and pulls away. “Fuck you.”

Lucretia laughs and wipes her face with the back of her hand. “I’m just goofing you, dear.” Her voice catches as the endearment slips out unintentionally.

“Yeah, whatever. Not all of us got to shower after our near-death experiences.” When he catches her eye, he sticks out his tongue, trying to divert her attention from his face, surely red and puffy from tears. He gives up and unties the band from his hair to shake it out. “Don’t look at me like that, ‘kay, I know I look…”

He looks like himself, but not himself, and for the thousandth time she curses Wonderland, as she sometimes does at the sight of her own face caught in a mirror. She reaches into a pocket in her dress, something she’d found in the bags Carey had given her, a pendant, and she holds it out to him.

“This is yours, yes? It’s not exactly a shower, but I thought you might want it.”

Relief, perhaps relief that he wishes wasn’t there, comes over him as he takes it from her hand. He looks at it for a moment, the rounded edges of the small orange stone familiar as he brushes his thumb across. He nods and slips it into the pocket of his robe.

“Thanks,” he says, otherwise still as he looks away. “Would’ve been a major pain in the ass to get another one.”

She blinks, looking at the pocket, then at his unchanged face. 

Even though he doesn’t look back, he says, “It doesn’t change how you smell, doofus. I’ll put it on after I shower.”

“Fair.” She stirs slightly, beginning to think about breakfast, about starting the day properly, when the front door creaks open.

“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to—” Angus, holding a cup of coffee, looks at them with a slightly alarmed expression.

Before he’s even done with his sentence, Taako jumps off the swing and nearly knocks the coffee out of Angus’s hand as he grabs him into a hug.

“Fuck,” Taako says into his shoulder—and he’s so tall now, just like Magnus—and he holds onto him so tight he can feel it aggravating the healing scars on his back. “Don’t ever fucking— you’re so—” Taako pulls away from him and puts Angus’s face in his hands like he did when the boy was half as tall. The twitch of his bottom lip gives him away as his gaze softens. “I’m glad you’re safe. And you’re grounded.”

Angus opens his mouth to protest as Lucretia snorts from her spot on the swing.

“Can you even  _ do _ that?” she asks. “Not that it’s not a very good idea, as usual, but I don’t think that’s how that works anymore.”

“Okay, if you ever try that shit again I will not hesitate to sic Garfield on your ass, and that’s  _ way worse.”  _ Taako says, but he takes Angus by the arm and drags him to the swing, sitting him down between them with attitude. Angus sets his coffee down safely beside Taako’s mug. When Taako takes his seat, he links his arm with Angus’s. 

“Doesn’t Garfield still owe you a favor?” she says with a smirk.

“Ma’am!” says Angus.

“Oh, bubbeleh, he owes me  _ many  _ favors,” Taako says with a lazy grin. Angus can’t tell if he’s joking.

“Then there you are,” she says. “You’ll have to mind your Ps and Qs for a quite a while now if you want to stay out of trouble.” Then she sighs, thinking of the previous night’s conversation. “I do wish you had talked to  _ us _ before going off like that. It’s not that Carey and Killian aren’t—”

“I just wanted some advice from— They’re good at that kind of stuff,” says Angus. 

Taako’s brows shoot up as he glances between them. “Damn, and I was gonna be cool about it, slept through the drama,” he laughs. “Who sold you out?”

“Your darling sister let that one slip,” she says. “She’s not exactly thrilled about how everything went.”

Taako cringes. “Yeah.” That’s a problem for later.

Angus sighs. “Should I talk to Aunt Lup?” he asks them.

“Sooner rather than later,” says Lucretia sharply. When Taako meets her eyes, he doesn’t look away.

“When you can,” Taako adds.

“I’m sure she’ll understand,” she says, putting a hand on Angus’s knee. “You were trying your best.”

“I’m so glad you’re both okay,” he says, one hand on Lucretia’s, the other holding Taako’s. “I would’ve—” He blinks away tears again, his eyes still a little puffy from the previous night.

Kalen’s threats still linger, though he’s dead and gone. Taako squeezes Angus’s hand. “C’mon, fucker didn’t stand a chance.”

She remembers Taako screaming obscenities at the closed door when Kalen left them alone. He really hadn’t stood a chance. Not against all of them together.

“Thank you,” she says, and finds that she means it. 

“Even though it was  _ stupid,”  _ Taako says, “we couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Magnus would be proud of you,” she adds. “He won’t know, but we will.”

Angus replies, “I wanted to help, but I almost made it worse.”

“From what I know, I’m pretty sure your dad and Julia were the two biggest shit-stirrers in town, so…” Taako nudges him, trying to get his chin up. “You can just say you take after ‘em.” 

Tears again well up in Lucretia’s eyes as she squeezes Angus’s knee. He takes a deep breath and sits up a little straighter, squaring his shoulders, then nods.

“Yes, sir.” 

“How was he, anyway?” Taako asks, his voice more tender than he wants it to be. “Hope he wasn’t too heartbroken that I couldn’t hang.” Angus catches his eye and Taako winks.

“Disappointed that nobody wanted to stick around and play cards,” he replies. “So I beat him at Go Fish a few times.” When he wrinkles up his nose, he looks so much like Magnus. “He knows something’s up, sir, what with the stone calls and you being gone like that and Aunt Lup turning up all mad. But...I told him I’d done something pretty bad, and he said—” He’d said that Taako and Lucretia would have to work things out in their own way; he still doesn’t know what that looks like. “He said you have to trust your friends.” He looks down at his hands still clasped in theirs.

Taako sighs, looking out at the sunrise, the sky gone all pink and orange over the water. He puts his arm around Angus, his knuckles brushing against Lucretia’s arm. She watches Taako with a faint smile as he speaks.

“Yeah, well... Maggie’s right sometimes _. _ ” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally do not know what to say here, except that this has been a life-changing experience that I'm glad we could share with you. Once again, many many thanks to @bluemoodblue for beta-reading and to the entire WDA for indulging contextless screaming, random excerpts, and for answering random questions when we were stuck. Many thanks also to you, readers and commenters. Elaine/epersonae may have done most of the responding because she has more free time rn but know that we both screamed over every comment in chat.
> 
> Also, this is not the end of our writing in this continuity! We have things planned and in the works; or come yell at us anytime on tumblr (as long as that's still a thing lol) where we are epersonae and polyblaster. Love you all. <3


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